Charcoal Demos and Warm-ups

Here are some 25min demos and 5 min warm-ups from last term.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!


A painting I did for my sister for Christmas. It's her cat, "Miao Yin".

On The Shelves - "Dean Cornwell - Dean of Illustrators"

Ever since I was introduced to Dean Cornwell's work, I've been a huge fan. I picked up this book about 7 years ago and I'm glad I did. It was the second printing of the book and has now since gone out of print again. You can still get it for around $150 which isn't bad considering the quality of the book. As far as I know this is the only book on his work and it is packed full. The book has a lot of full color images and a lot of the preliminary work for his finished pieces. I was fortunate enough to see a few of his pieces while I was back on the east coast. His paintings are a lot of fun to look at because of how much paint he used. Very thick! Anyway, go pick up this book while you still can!

Here are some pages from the book.

Watts Atelier 2010 Winter Schedule

The NEW Winter 2010 class schedule for the Watts Atelier is available. We are nearing the end of our Fall term, and recommend early registration for the next term. Classes fill up quick. Classes start January 11th. Here is a list of classes I will be teaching:

20 MINUTE FIGURE LAY-IN
Tuesdays
10:00am-1:00pm

DESIGNING DRAPERY IN OIL
Tuesdays
2:30-5:30pm

PERSPECTIVE ESSENTIALS
Wednsdays
2:30pm-5:30pm

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT FOR PICTURE MAKING
Wednsdays
7:00-10:00pm


Click on a class above to be directed to the class page.

Another Gouache Comp

Here is another gouache comp studied from Mr. Phil Hale....

Gouache Comps From The Masters

These were demos from a 'Composition From The Masters' class I taught this term. The main goal was to get familiar with how masters broke up space using shapes and values. The exercise with the color comps is to establish the mood and color harmonies that the masters got. Each comp takes no longer than 30-40min. The goal is not detail, but getting the overall graphic design and mood.

Masters studied here: Jean Leon Gerome and Frank Frazetta

Masters studied here: Dean Cornwell and Lawrence Alma-Tadama

Watts Atelier - Winter 2010 Brochure

Here is the new brochure for the Winter schedule. Here is a link to the PDF version: Winter 2010 Brochure

Older Portrait Work

Here are some portrait paintings done over the last 4-5yrs. You can see me trying to adopt that loose Jeff Watts style. Notice how I said "trying"...
This one I did as a demo for a portrait painting class I taught about 3yrs ago.

This one was done in a workshop. I believe a workshop I took with fine artist, Carolyn Anderson.

This one was done in an outdoor portrait painting class. You see the best part of living in San Diego is that our weather is almost always good out door painting weather. It was a great change compared to studio lighting.