Saturday Figure Drawing Classes: Construct Class

Rendering the human form is the most difficult task in drawing and the beginning stages of construction are the most important. In these photos you can see some of our students beginning stages (aslo known at the construct). We offer a class on Saturdays, where students will be given a step-by-step system that will improve their ability to accurately capture gesture, proportion and body type, working from a nude model. From this general block-in, students will advance towards an exploration of the figure's specific contour and shadow line. Poses in the construct class will range from three to six hours. Students receive individual attention and work at their own pace.

To find out more and to register for the Construct Class on Saturdays 1-4 go to our website.

http://academyofrealistartboston.com/weekend-classes/

3 Day Portrait Painting Workshop with Iliya Mirochnik

We're excited to offer this workshop next month. Iliya won First Place in the international Portrait Society Competition. Sign up soon, spots are limited!

Portrait Painting Workshop
Dates: December 6th, 7th, 8th
Guest Instructor: Iliya Mirochnik
Cost: $485
Time: 9:30 to 4:30 with a 1 hour lunch break

During the course of the 3 day portrait painting in workshop, students will focus on the elements that make up a powerful and emotional depiction of the human being. During the class the students will produce a portrait with hands in oil in the traditional alla prima techniques of the Repin Academy of Arts. The students will focus on developing a dynamic composition, figuring out important color and value relationships, all the while emphasizing accurate drawing. The main emphasis will be on stressing the character of the model, working to carry it through all the elements of the painting, from establishing a likeness and expressing the pose to creating a composition that will emphasize the emotional qualities of the sitter. During the workshop Iliya Mirochnik will be doing an alla prima portrait demonstration in oils.

Find out more here

Portrait Painting class

Our Portrait Painting classes with Garrett at the Academy of Realist Art Boston are well under way on Monday evenings from 5 to 8. At this point, students are working their dry-brush stage with raw or burnt umber and mineral spirits.

This class sold out this semester, but we have opened up this same class for next semester. Only a limited number of students can enroll for this class, so sign up early!

You can register for the class here: http://academyofrealistartboston.com/evening-classes/

Scholarship Competition is now open!

The Academy of Realist Art, Boston has launched its second annual scholarship competition for promising artists with a love for academic style painting and drawing.

The Academy is one of a select few art schools in the world that teaches the academic approach to figure drawing and painting. We model our curriculum and classical techniques on those used by 19th-century European academies to help students master fine art skills.

The scholarship to be awarded is for one year's free tuition for the school year, September 2014-June 2015. Applicants must be 18 years of age or older.

Deadline for submission is March 15, 2014. Winners will be announced March 30, 2014.

Click here to see rules/contest requirements.

Guild of Boston Artists Competition

We're proud to have 3 ARA Boston instructors (Emmy De Musis, Brian MacNeil, and Julie Beck) chosen as finalists in The Guild of Boston Artists 2013 Annual Regional Painting Competition.

"Established in 1914 by the prominent painters of the day, including Edmund Tarbell, William Paxton and Frank Benson, The Guild of Boston Artists was created to be an artist owned and operated gallery. With the mission of promoting both emerging and established artists living in the region, the Guild developed a reputation for excellence in quality and presentation."

The opening for the show, which is free to the public, is on Saturday October 5th from 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM. We would love to see you there!

Emmy De Musis, Painting of Ernesto

Julie Beck, Painting of Silas

Brian MacNeil's Lost in the Shuffle

ARA Boston's New Website

We are very excited to announce the launch of our new website. Our goals for this redesign and revamp were to make it easier to understand the format of the school, and have the information you need right easily available. We would love to know what you think!

Click here to visit the new site! 

(same web address, new look)

http://academyofrealistartboston.com

Color Lab Wrap Up with photos

Recently we wrapped up our last workshop of the summer. It was taught by Sean Krajnik. In this workshop students learned to mix and paint human flesh tones. Through a series of in-depth lectures students learned the fundamental principles of color and gained a greater appreciation for the complexity of painting the human figure.

Using modern color science and color measuring tools such as the Munsell Book of Color and a spectrophotometer students became familiar with the hues they might use to paint flesh.

The beginning lessons dealt with fundamentals like paint selection and organizing a flesh tone palette. Student's then learned to mix the subtle hue and value changes that occur when form changes illumination. They did this using simple flesh colored geometric shapes under a single light source.

Then students worked on a flesh study of a figure painting.

color matching

As you can see from the glare in the photo below, Sean has used saran-wrap to cover the image he is duplicating. This allows the student to color match directly on the image and check for accuracy. Once the correct color key is chosen, the saran-wrap can be set aside to reference later on.

The Academy of Realist Art, Boston offers PDP's

The Massachusetts Department of Education has approved the Academy of Realist Art, Boston to provide PDP's (Professional Development Points) for Massachusetts primary and secondary school teachers. This means that art teachers in Massachusetts can come and take classes and workshops at the school and receive credit towards their recertification requirements.

We are approved for drawing and painting courses that cover a variety of topics including methods, materials and techniques of drawing and painting as well as principles of design, and elements of color and value. With a wide selection of qualifying courses art teachers will find much of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks content covered.

Our summer Bargue course and 2 painting workshops are examples of classes that provide PDP's as well as many of the classes we offer beginning in September.

Tiago Finato: Earning credits with ARA Boston courses

One of our talented students, Tiago Finato recently got college credit for classes he took at the Academy of Realist Art, Boston.

He is currently enrolled at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth in their undergraduate degree, BFA Painting Major.

Tiago first applied and was accepted into the painting program at UMass, Darmouth. He asked the chairperson of the art department about the possibility of getting credit toward his degree for the classes he took at ARA Boston. After providing them with an ARA syllabus, curriculum description and an official ARABoston transcript and his portfolio he was granted credit toward his studio foundation courses at the U.

The process took Tiago about 6 months from beginning to end with his grades and efforts going a long way to getting these credits approved.

ARA Boston class courses have compatible hours with college level courses and a level of work that is very high.

A little more about Tiago:  Tiago moved to the US from Brazil to explore art and moved to Massachusetts in 2001. He is currently the President of the Greater Fall River Art Association and the UMass Darmouth drawing club. Tiago has received numerous commissions including the Fall River Library commission, entitled: Human Emotion at a Moment in Time, a portrait painting for the tenth anniversary of September 11, the commission of the new Mayor of Fall River, Massachusetts William A. Flanagan, which it is on permanent display at the Fall River Government Center and the official mayoral portrait of Taunton, Massachusetts Mayor Thomas Hoye.

You can check out his website here.

Tiago works on a figure drawing

Saturday Long Pose Figure Drawing Class with Emmy De Musis

This upcoming Fall semester we will be offering a few classes on Saturdays taught by Emmy De Musis. Born and bred in Boston Emmy has amassed an impressive resume of art training.  She is a graduate of Walnut Hill School for the Arts with a major in painting and holds a BFA in painting from Carnegie Mellon. She traveled to Florence, Italy in 2008 and studied drawing at the Florence Academy of Art. Upon returning to the States in 2009 she enrolled at the Academy of Realist Art, Boston to study with Director, Cindy MacMillan.  During this time she made a sojourn to France to study with Michelle Tully and Timothy Stotz at Studio Escalier for a term. Now serving as the Assistant Director at the Academy of Realist Art, Boston she is teaching figure drawing.

In 2011, She was awarded a student scholarship from the Portrait Society of America to attend their annual conference and was among ten finalists chosen to participate in the Grand Central Academy 2011 figure drawing competition.

One of the classes Emmy teaches is a long pose class. This is a popular class with students because they get to work on some of the refined drawing skills that can't be addressed in classes with shorter model poses.

Description of Emmy's Long Pose Saturday Drawing Class

Beginning in graphite, students complete a 'cartoon'. This is a preliminary drawing that establishes proportion, body type, gesture and the correct grouping of light and dark. This important phase creates a solid structure. Students then transfer the cartoon to toned paper and the drawing continues in graphite and chalk. Emmy will assist students in choosing an area of the figure to fully render. Through the articulation of subtle plane changes and correct value assignments, the students work towards a naturalistic and volumetric drawing.

Emmy will provide individual critiques, demos and lectures.

Figure Drawing Long Pose 10 weeks beginning September 14th through November 16th.

Catherine Hart took the Long Pose class last spring - here is her drawing made with graphite on Fabriano Artistico hot pressed watercolor paper

Hiroshi Furuyoshi

ARC Salon Show Winners

Do you every wonder what happens to an artist's painting after it is selected as a winner in the annual Art Renewal Center Salon show?  

Artist Hiroshi Furuyoshi's painting "Julien" won "Best in Show" in the ARC 2008 annual salon. It was subsequently sold at Christies auction house in June 2010 for $58,404 U.S.

On Thursday, September 5th another of Furuyoshi's paintings is featured at a Christies auction. Fans of this artist may want to watch the results.

Workshop Wrap Up with Hege Elisabeth Haugen

Our 1-week Figure Painting workshop with Hege Elisabeth Haugen recently wrapped up. During the workshop students worked from the model using sight-size. Students particularly enjoyed the information they received on the use of palette and color sketch, the block-in stage and the design of half-tone shapes.

Hege Elisabeth Haugen was born in Hönefoss, Norway. She was a full-time student of Odd Nerdrum in Oslo for two years in addition to spending a few summers both in Iceland and Norway studying with him. In 2003 she began her studies at The Florence Academy of Art. Her paintings are in private and public collections in Norway as well as in private collections in Denmark and Italy.

Frank's construct. Sight-size helps him get it down quickly!

Massing in the general values.

By Day 5 students were excited with the light effect they had achieved in their paintings.

Open House and Spring Term Completed Works

Our Fall Term begins September 9th. We are holding an open house that first week of classes on Wednesday September 11th from 12:00 PM until 8:00 PM so feel free to drop in for a tour or to ask any questions you may have. We hope to see you then!!

Our school is located at

112 South Street, Second and Third Floor Boston, MA 02111

(617) 426-3006

Figure Drawings are completed on the Tuesday and Thursday classes. Bargues/Casts are scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays. We also have some great classes such as Evening Bargue Class (Wednesday evenings), Anatomy (Wednesday afternoons), Color Lab (Thursday evenings), and Long Pose Figure Drawing, and Constructs (Saturdays).

Here is a small sampling of the great work completed by students at the Academy of Realist Art Boston in the Spring 2013 Term.

Check the website for details on enrolling in any of the great classes we have to offer.

Kevin Gearns Bargue Level 4

Ginny Level 4 Bargue

Kevin Gearns Figure Drawing of Laura

Julie Beck Fortuni Master Copy

Paul Birnbaum Level 2 Bargue

Julie Beck Cast Painting 1

Close Up of James Danielson Figure Drawing

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Francis Bacon's old paintbrushes

How do you know when it is time to throw your old painting brushes in the garbage?

Francis Bacon gave the brushes he used to paint large studies of Lucian Freud to his friend and fellow artist Clive Barker in 1978. Clive eventually sold the brushes, they were used on the television program 'Four Rooms' and then sold to dealer Gordon Watson.  Now they have surfaced as part of a Christies auction. They are bundled with a signed edition of the book Francis Bacon by Lorenza Trucchi. Listed with an estimate of $30,000 the price will probably climb higher.

If you're the next Francis Bacon - never trash your old brushes. Give them to your friends. You'll be doing them a favor.