Monday, August 25, 2014

Founding an Atelier at the Request of Students.

WE OPEN IN MID OCTOBER!


Last winter I was asked to interview at DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Washington for an over-hire, adjunct position in the BFA dept. to handle overflow in figure drawing courses. (They are a school which specializes in the creation of video games.) When I interviewed by demonstrating the anatomy-based, constructive figure drawing lessons I had been teaching for a while in front of the assembled faculty they offered me a full professorship. I was in complete shock.

It’s a great school and it was a great experience but after one year I’m ready to begin a teaching project which can only be done within the framework of a truly independent program. 
A perceptual painting program (no drawing) that is logistically too costly for other schools, too lengthy and also not currently super marketable (like the “classical” or digital illustration oriented things which I’ve been previously asked to teach). 

In fact, it was my own long-term, firsthand experience of teaching at, and of the teaching within, a mass-marketed “classical” atelier in Seattle which made me sure that these perceptual, tonal lessons, which form a foundation for understanding Corot, are needed. 

The general texts for the program are “The Science of Appearances” by Max Meldrum and “Experience in Painting, An Analysis of the Visual Impression as Applied to Painting” by Percy Leason.