Portraits 3: Features and Composition

With your understanding of the human head's planar structure well under way, you are ready to delve into individual features. In addition, as you begin to synthesize perspective and anatomy in your portrait drawings you will be ready to play with the larger compositional picture with increased knowledge.

 

First, you will learn to simplify and comprehend eyes, nose, mouth and ears as sculptural and anatomical forms. Then you'll work on integrating these landmarks into the overall architecture of the head. In addition, you will learn to use shapes and spaces to more easily and effectively portray the unique character of each feature from your viewpoint. Finally, you will carry the focus on flat shapes and spaces into costume and background to make surprising and satisfying compositions. The class builds on our previous work with planes and modeling the form to full rendering of the head and surroundings in light and shadow. 

Portraits 3: Features and Composition

Wednesdays

10:30-1:30

July 8, 15, 22, 29 

August 5, 12, 19, 26

Class cost: $288

Location TBA 

Email me to register

Thank you!

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Image:

Leonardo da Vinci

Angel for the “Madonna of the Rocks” 

ca. 1483-85

metal point heightened with white on prepared paper, 181 x 159 cm

Announcing

New June workshops: small, semi-private one-day sessions in my home studio with a view. Enjoy a lunch break, plenty of time to develop your work, camaraderie and lots of individual attention. You are welcome to draw, paint, or both. Click here to read about the class that started the idea. 

Drawing & Painting Workshop

Topic: Interior with Landscape View

We will look particularly at Diebenkorn, Matisse and Bonnard as we draw and paint the view through the old fashioned windows of my Spanish-style building to the red tile roofs and Lake Union beyond. Drawers will explore a series of variations in the first half, building to a more finished study in either pencil or charcoal after lunch (you may also bring colored pencils or other media). The focus will be on simplifying creatively, understanding the perspective of what you're seeing, connecting indoors to outdoors, and creating a strong compositional structure. Painters will sketch and transfer their drawings to Bristol board in the first half, then switch to painting after lunch. Your additional focus will be on making a painterly, layered painting. Lots of individual attention and demos. We will start on time and keep our lunch to an hour to maximize our work time.

Sunday, June 21

11am-4pm

Deadline to register: Saturday, June 20 by noon

Friday, June 26

11am-4pm

Deadline to register: Wednesday, June 24 by 5:00 pm

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Lunch from 1-2

Please bring a lunch

I will have salad, bread, cheese, fruit, cookies, etc. 

So no need to worry if you forgot/didn't have time

Location:

Julia's Studio

Contact me for details

Class cost $80

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EMAIL ME TO BOOK

Space is limited to 4 people. 

Booking is on a first come, first serve basis.

Minimum of 2 people necessary to run each workshop.

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Images:

Christine Lee paints the view, with Vicki Schoettle's painting visible

And, the view

Flower class: New June dates

Drawing Flowers in Color

It's spring! Join me for an exploration of flowers and plants in the versatile mediums of aquarelle pencils and aquarelle crayons. Starting in pencil and charcoal to focus on gesture, structure and value, we'll switch to aquarelles to capture color ideas and explore composition. Develop your drawings using techniques from hatching and pastel-like effects through translucent washes and opaque layers. Working from still life arrangements indoors and from plants at the Conservatory at Volunteer Park, you'll learn simple ways to organize complex subjects that can be applied to anything you look at, including contour, shapes, spaces, relationships, and value. In addition, discover ways to draw out the abstract elements in your subject and develop surprising, original compositions with line, pattern, shape and color. The class includes some essential color theory and lots of technical tips, as well as a look at flowers and plants in art history for inspiration and information. A springy spirit of experimentation is encouraged as we delve into nature's jewel-box. All levels welcome, no experience necessary.

Tuesdays 

10:30-1:30 

June 9-30

(June 9, 16, 23, 30)

4 sessions $144

Email me to register

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Locations: 

June 9, 23

University Heights Building 

5031 University Way NE, Room 211 

Seattle, WA 98105 

206-527-4278

 

June 16, 30

Conservatory

Volunteer Park

1402 East Galer Street

Seattle, WA 98112 

206-322-4112

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Image:

Vincent van Gogh

Irises, 1889

Oil on canvas

28 x 37"

Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Heads up! Portrait drawing, continued

Registration is now open for part two of Portrait Drawing.

Portrait Drawing 2: Form and Volume

In the continuation of Portrait Drawing: The Human Head, you learn to make increasingly three-dimensional heads in both line and value. Heighten the sense of volume, solidity and space in your drawings with an in-depth study of the head's sculptural qualities coupled with some useful anatomical information. Starting with pure line, discover the "inner" surfaces of the head and face and find out how exterior lines relate to interior planes. Then, following line and plane into volume, learn the important concept and technique of modeling the form to build a convincingly 3-d head on your page. Finally, you work with light and shadow to reveal form and create exciting depth and atmosphere, using both additive and subtractive techniques in pencil and charcoal. Art history continues to be an important part of our studies as we work from both reproductions and live models. Pre-requisite: Portrait Drawing: The Human Head 1, or permission of instructor. 

SECTION 1

Wednesdays

10:30-1:30

May 13-June 24

(May 13, 20, 27; June 3, 10, 17, 24 )

7 sessions

$252

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SECTION 2

Fridays

1:30-4:30

May 8-June 26

No class June 5

(May 8, 15, 22, 29; June 12, 19, 26)

7 sessions

$252

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Location:
University Heights Building
5031 University Way NE, Room 211
Seattle, WA 98105

Email me to register

Please let me know which section you are signing up for. 

Thank you!

Museum visit NEW DATE: Sunday, April 19

Please note that the date for our visit to the Garden and Cosmos exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum has changed:

The new date is Sunday, April 19 from 1:30-4:30.

See below for details.

Join me for sketching, informal lecture, discussion and exploration of this extraordinary show, followed by dinner at a nearby restaurant (TBA).

"Blossom Cluster of Delight"

I picked up a postcard of this painting in Boston and it's on my studio wall right now - what a delight to find the image on the Harvard's Sackler Museum website so I can share it here. Apparently, beetle-wing cases were used in its making, see below. How's that for mixed media?

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Image:
Unknown Artist
A Nayika and Her Lover: Page from a Dispersed Rasamanjari Series (Blossom Cluster of Delight), c. 1660-1670
Painting
Indian, 17th century
Basohli, Kashmir, India
Opaque watercolor, gold, and beetle-wing cases on paper
actual: 23.4 x 33 cm (9 3/16 x 13 in.)
Harvard Art Museum/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of John Kenneth Galbraith, 1972.74

Museum visit NEW DATE: Sunday, April 19

Join me for the next Julia's Studio Museum Visit to

Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Sunday, April 19

1:30-4:30

$42 (non-SAM-member)

$33 (SAM member)

There is nothing like looking at paintings from another country to bring home the mystery (and delight) of cultural perspective. These lush images burst with life and story, and at the same time they present visual viewpoints quite different from conventional western ones. Let's look for ways to understand the stories as well as the visual elements of the paintings by noticing connections to other work, discussing what we see, and sketching the paintings to make them our own.

All are welcome to join me for an early dinner following the class at a restaurant nearby, TBA.

Read Jen Graves' review of this gorgeous show in the Stranger.

Contact me to reserve your space.