Seattle Atelier Still Life Courses

All our still life classes are alla prima and solvent free.

Students finish each painting in one session after carefully creating their palettes as a scale of relationships.

In the above image student Jennifer Will creates a sight size Alla Prima still life in less than an hour, walking back and forth from her focus point, after first taking a couple hours to create a group of pre-mixed correctly related tone families and colors within each. 

Students enjoy getting at a subjects visual essence in this objective way and the classroom is open to students at all times and they often say well past the four hour to six hour class times. 

In the image below student Kathy Paul stands at her “focus point” twelve feet from her canvas, sensing out her shapes as she tries out her initial tone group “hypotheses”, adjusting constantly at this stage by physically adjusting large piles of paint on her palette and testing them against each other. 

That is not a value-match of each area but a painting of their relationships. 

 Anyone familiar with the general textbooks for the program also knows how many diagrams, charts, exercises and other practices help explain this both natural and analytical process. Frequent instructor painting demonstrations show the process.  

(Below: Student’s Alla Prima works in progress. Limited and full-color palettes)

 

Twice Yearly Free Introductory Classes and Painting Demonstrations, Daniel Smith, Seattle (2014-2020).