The Georgetown Atelier is an apprenticeship-style school that specializes in traditional drawing and painting. It's located in Seattle's historic Georgetown District, renowned for its thriving artistic community. It's housed in a charming brick and wood building that was once the bottling plant of the old Rainier Brewery.

The Georgetown Atelier is designed for students who are aiming to achieve a rock-solid foundation in traditional drawing and painting. It's intended for the aspiring career artist- whether gallery or industry, or for the already practicing artist who needs to take a step back and build a skill-based foundation that was skipped over in prior education.

The curriculum combines both observational and constructive methodologies, formulated to provide a balanced education. The founder/instructor has both extensive training as a classical artist and as an industry professional. His teaching and curriculum draws from both territories.

The Georgetown Atelier offers 4 program tracks:

Full-Time Comprehensive Program

Full-Time 1 Year Intensive Program

Full-Time Custom Program *

Part-Time Program

* This option available ONLY if the student has prior training AND has portfolio samples that demonstrate a sufficient levelof mastery of applicable areas in order to "transfer credit".

Comprehensive Program

Year 1: Drawing

Year 2: Monochromatic Painting/ Warm-Cool Painting, and Limited Palette Painting

Year 3: Advanced Painting

Year 4 (Optional): Students are given the opportunity to continue into a 4th year as a full-time student, or as a mentored student on a part-time basis.

1 Year Intensive Program

This program mirrors the 1st year of the comprehensive program, except students spend the first 2 semesters drawing, and the 3rd in Monochromatic Painting.

Students have the option to continue into the 2nd year Comprehensive Program after the 1 Year Intensive is completed. The instructor then works with students individually to determine if any additional drawing projects are needed.

Drawing

The drawing portion of the curriculum forms the foundational pillars for everything that follows. Students begin by learning to 'block-in' the figure and other subjects. The relative simplicity of materials allows students to learn critical practices without having to juggle paint complexities.

Below is a list of Core-Subjects within the Drawing Curriculum:

• Block-Ins, Working Broad to Specific
• Constructive Anatomy, Inventing the Figure (new!)
• Rendering
• Composition I
• Creative Perspective (new!)
• Drawing on Toned Paper
• Drawing with Color Temperature and using Custom Materials
• Photoshop I (new!)

Monochromatic Painting, Warm/Cool, and Limited Palette Painting

In the second major stage of the curriculum students are introduced to painting. Students begin by working in Grisaille (grayscale), in order to learn painting procedures and materials without having to juggle color complexities. This way, students are able to more readily apply their experience gained through drawing into painting. Students then learn to paint in color one step at a time: first with warm/cool relationships, then with a limited palette.

Below is a list of Core Subjects within this section of the Curriculum:

• Painting Materials and Mediums I
• Painting with 6 Values
• Placing 'tiles' with paint
• Drawing to Painting Transfers
• Painting in Layers
• Fundamentals of Color Temperature: Warm/Cool painting
• Learning the Reilly Method with a customized Earth/Flesh Tones limited palette
• Transitioning to an Open Palette while making use of Value-Color 'Strings'
• Painting with a 6 color 'Velasquez' limited palette

Advanced Painting

The final stage in the curriculum is learning to paint with advanced techniques and with a full-color palette. Using all the knowledge, practice, and principles gained though drawing and painting with color constraints, Students embark upon the virtually limitless domain of oil painting in full-color.

Below is a list of Core Subjects within the Advanced Painting Curriculum:

• Painting Materials and Mediums II
• Composition II
• Photoshop II
• Advanced Painting Techniques: Sculpting with the paint-emulating the surface of the subject and building texture with impasto, Glazing over impasto.
• Advanced Portrait Painting
• Expanding your palette one color at a time and on a need basis according to the painting.

Last updated on 2012-07-12

Full-Time Study
Water Street Atelier/Core Program
Instructors in the four-year, full time program include Jacob Collins, Ted Minoff, Scott Waddell, Josh LaRock, Tony Curanaj and Jiwoong Cheh.
Annual tuition is $8,500.
Classes run September - May, Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 5pm

Admissions: Applications for September admission are due on February 1, and notification is by April 1. Applications for January admission are due on October 1. Rolling admission is considered year-round, space-permitting. Prospective students are strongly encouraged to schedule a tour or take a class - in cast drawing especially. Students with different levels of art experience are encouraged to apply. An excellent work ethic along with a clear mission is highly valued in applicants. Prospective students are asked to submit, to the extent possible, work samples done from life as opposed to from photographs. Work from photographs may be submitted but it is the admissions committee's preference to see work done from life.

Scholarships: In addition to 4 annual scholarships awarded for academic excellence in cast drawing, block-in and figure works, one new full scholarship will be awarded to a promising incoming student.

Financial Assistance: Students may apply for open work-study positions after they have been at GCA at least 6 months. Positions are awarded balancing financial need with job skill and seniority. Awards vary depending on job responsibility.

Questions/Visits: email Justine Kalb at grandcentralacademy@gmail.com

Part-Time Study
Evening & Saturday Classes
No application required. Drawing, painting, sculpting, ecorche, perspective and MET Museum copying classes offered September - May. New students are encouraged to take a foundational cast drawing class, but it is not required. Most classes run in 4-8 week cycles. Once a student is in a class, he or she may re-enroll through priority registration to keep their spot. Core teachers Ted Minoff, Josh LaRock, Scott Waddell and Tony Curanaj also teach part time classes. Other teachers include established artists and teachers Rick Piloco, John deMartin, Jiwoong Cheh, Mason Sullivan, and Chad Fisher as well as distinguished graduates of the Water Street Atelier: Sam Wisneski, Carla Crawford, Colleen Barry, Will St. John, Justin Wood, Greg Mortenson and Angela Cunningham.
Questions/Enroll: email Joy Tomasko at gcaclasses@gmail.com

Summer Study
Workshops in June, July & August
No application required. GCA's daytime workshops last from 3 - 20 days. Up to 20 workshops are taught by regular and visiting teachers. Plein Air landscape painting workshops are offered in NYC and in New Hampshire's White Mountains. Students are encouraged to take single workshops or to design an intensive course of study by enrolling in consecutive workshops. Enrollment is first come, first served with a 50% deposit to hold your spot. For those interested in full time study, the month-long Drawing Intensive is a solid introduction to the curriculum, teaching and environment of the Water Street Atelier.
Questions/Enroll: email Registrar, Joy Tomasko at gcaclasses@gmail.com

Competitions
Classical Figure Drawing Competition in June 2013:
Twelve finalists are selected to compete in a 5-day, 40-hour concours to sculpt a 32" figure from life. The model poses for 8 hours per day. The competition is open to all figurative sculptors including previous finalists. Participants will be selected for their modeling ability, and demonstrated aspirations to make beautiful, excellent classical sculpture. Awards include 1st Place, $10,000, 2nd Place, $3,000 and 3rd Place, $2,000. There is a $25 application fee, and a $75 fee to compete.
Questions: email Justine Kalb at grandcentralacademy@gmail.com

Classical Still Life Painting Competition in June 2014:
Ten finalists are selected to compete in a 5-day, 40 hour concours to paint a still life. Participants will be selected from an online portfolio submission of 5 images. All artists from student to professionals, young and old are encouraged to apply. Awards include 1st place, $10,000, 2nd Place, $3,000, and 3rd Place, $2,000. There is a $25 application fee, and a $75 fee to compete.
Questions: email Justine Kalb at grandcentralacademy@gmail.com

Classical Figure Sculpting Competition in June 2015:
Twelve finalists are selected to compete in a 5-day, 40-hour concours to sculpt a 32" figure from life. The model poses for 8 hours per day. The competition is open to all figurative sculptors including previous finalists. Participants will be selected for their modeling ability, and demonstrated aspirations to make beautiful, excellent classical sculpture. Awards include 1st Place, $10,000, 2nd Place, $3,000 and 3rd Place, $2,000. There is a $25 application fee, and a $75 fee to compete.
Questions: email Justine Kalb at grandcentralacademy@gmail.com

Hudson River Fellowship
Based out of the village of Jackson in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Fellows gather for a three-week long collaborative fellowship to paint the landscapes that drew over 400 painters in the 19th Century including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, George Inness, Sanford Gifford, Jasper Cropsey, Albert Beirstadt, and the New Hampshire native credited with founding the White Mountain School, Benjamin Champney. The Fellowship runs for three weeks in the summer. The HRF provides all accepted students with full tuition and free housing in shared rental houses. There is no application fee. There is a $100 participation fee and a $100 housing deposit to be returned at the end of the fellowship.
Questions: email Justine Kalb at grandcentralacademy@gmail.com

Alma Schapiro Prize at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art
The GCA, with the ICAA, offers a prize for a 3-month stay at the American Academy in Rome. The prize is awarded every two years. Past winners include Michael Grimaldi (2007), Jeffrey Mims (2009) and Will St. John (2011). The total award includes Academy fees, travel allotment and award stipend. The proposed three-month stay must begin between September 2014 and March 2014 and to conclude no later than May 31, 2014. The application deadline is Monday, November 1, 2013. Applicants must be at least 21 years of age.
Questions: email education@classicist.org

Last updated on 2013-02-19

School founded in 1987.

The present class format is for six months, limited to seven students. The course is extremely information-intensive, and not for the casual workshopper. My goal is to continue to form future professional artists and instructors. The program is not for everybody. It's challenging.

All information will be presented in simple language. Instruction is in the form of frequent lecture-demonstrations, and lengthy individual critique.
Principles are generalizations. They must then be applied to very specific cases. We will work with two categories. One is intellectual, the principles. The other is purely sensory. Comparing what we see on the canvas, to what we see on the model. Visual to visual.

For example, light travels from an energetic source. Therefore it is directional. For our terrestrial studio purposes, we can say it travels in a straight line thatÔøΩs a principle. It is then necessary to carefully decide that light direction as it reflects from the model, and at what angle it reflects to our eyes. That is determined visually. We will always be dealing with three-dimensional objects, in three-dimensional space.

Principle: All light has an intensity, and a coloration. Visual: Exactly how bright is that light, and what is its color? We discover these specifics by comparing what we have done to what we see. General principles x comparison=Discovery!

Our basic subject is the actions of light on the structures of forms. Structure includes the specific shapes of every form, how those shapes are modified by action, how they are arranged on the body (nature's organized design ) how they grow, modular proportions, families of structures, how they are tilted in space relative to our line of sight, and so on.

Light is invisible unless it reflects from form. Form is invisible without light. In order for the process of sight to occur, both light and form are necessary.
Restructured Realism is the study of perception, and the optimal suggestion paint allows, of what we see. It is a contemporary vision, or perhaps a future one, whose roots are from the past.
This program is unique in the world. You will receive information not available elsewhere. If you are very highly dedicated, contact me for the brochure.

Good wishes, to you, and for your art.

Ted

Read Restructured Realism in France

Last updated on 2011-07-05

The London Atelier of Representational Art (LARA) housed in Vauxhall, was established in response to the rarity of rigorous representational art education in the UK. LARA teaches the fundamentally important aspects of drawing, painting and sculpture from life through the "sight size" method and uses a specific approach designed to teach the essential concepts of proportion, line, gesture, form and light.

Inspired by the atelier method of instruction, LARA offers a unique training with sustained poses of no less than two weeks and up to one month, giving optimum time to observe and understand the figure. LARA believes "To successfully draw from life, one must first understand how to see".

A half day is spent drawing or painting from the nude model, the other half the cast, still life, or portrait model. Each project lasts a minimum of two weeks. Class numbers are limited to no more than 26 and all tutors are classically trained working artists implementing a highly structured style with regular critical appraisal.

LARA welcomes part-time and full-time students, with courses running from one-week intensive workshops to three year full time training. The school also offers weekend classes and holiday schools to aid those with additional commitments.

LARA recognises that students learn at different rates and will arrive with different levels of experience. As a result the approach is flexible, all levels of ability are catered for and teaching is tailored to individual requirements. For further information about the courses please view www.drawpaintsculpt.com

Last updated on 2011-07-05