Key Elements of Fine Arts

Looking to start a new creative hobby? This comprehensive course is perfect for you. Learn all the essential fundamentals that working artists employ to sketch and paint from both imagination and real-world observation. Even complete beginners will successfully complete a portrait and develop an original composition by the course's end.

Throughout this course, you will master:

• Color mixing techniques
• Sketching methods and approaches
• Shading and value studies
• Perspective principles and applications
• Abstract and figurative composition
• Rendering human figures
• Portraying human faces and features
• Advancing artwork from initial thumbnails and compositional sketches through to polished final details

Complete Course Curriculum:

• Day 1: The Cezanne Lesson
• Methods for obtaining desired colors through mixing techniques.
• Day 2: The Silhouette Lesson
• Training your eye to assess proportions accurately, scaling drawings to paper dimensions, and building coordination between eye and hand.
• Day 3: The Escher Lesson
• Understanding shading and volume through the three fundamental 3D forms: the sphere, cylinder, and block. 
• Day 4: The Durer Lesson
• Exploring Isometric, Reverse, and Renaissance perspectives with practical outdoor drawing exercises.
• Day 5: The Degas Lesson
• Comprehensive lecture on how three-dimensional space has been represented on two-dimensional surfaces throughout art history, fundamental compositional rules and arrangements, plus practical drawing studies.
• Day 6: The Miro Lesson
• Exploring fundamental composition concepts, including line, shape, weight, movement, and spatial relationships within a composition. Introduction to abstract art history contextualizes these compositional principles.
• Day 6: The Chardin Lesson, Part 1
• Techniques for composing and painting still life subjects, initiating your creative project.
• Day 7: The Chardin Lesson, Part 2
• Refining and completing your still life painting, applying final details and touches.
• Day 8: The Michelangelo Lesson
• Learning human body proportions and fundamental anatomical principles. Concludes with a series of sketches from wooden mannequins and live models.
• Day 9: The Holbein Lesson
• Studying head and facial proportions, then drawing an alabaster head cast.
• Day 10: The Serov Lesson
• Executing a quick portrait of a live model.
• Day 11: The Gauguin Lesson, Part 1
• Building a composition featuring one or multiple human figures from concept through to successful completion. 
• Day 12: The Gauguin Lesson, Part 2
• Completing your final project.

This concluding lesson synthesizes and reinforces all skills and concepts mastered throughout the course.