About Our Gallery | Our Approach
Classes & Schedule | Guest Artists | 308 Artists
The Beginning
The most asked question in my studio is, "Can you teach anyone to paint or draw?" My answer --- a cautious, "Yes." I believe that, first of all, once students learn how to truly look at the world –- not how they think it looks but how it really looks -– they can then recreate it on paper or canvas. Secondly, it is most important to pick subjects that appeal to the artist and creator. Life is too short to spend time creating a piece of art that does not inspire both the artist and the admirer.
Colored Pencil
Colored pencils no longer have the stigma of your grandmother’s favorite grammar school
tool. With The Colored Pencil Society of America's giving credence to this growing and
popular form of art, it has become a very acceptable choice of artists. Beginning with good
paper –- Stonehenge is our favorite -– and Prismacolor pencils, students will learn the
techniques of layering, blending, and pencil-stroking as well as direction, pressure, and
burnishing.
Graphite Pencil
"CONTRAST – CONTRAST – CONTRAST!" shouts the sign hanging in the 308 studio. With only a pencil to create the illusions of light and dark plus rough and smooth, contrast becomes the most important element. Pencil leads ranging from very hard to very soft facilitate the process of stroking, hatching, cross-hatching, smudging, erasing, and layering to achieve gratifying results.
Pen and Ink
We joke in the studio that one must become obsessive compulsive with overtones of a controlling personality to enjoy pen and ink. It is tedious and quite demanding! But, oh, for that those who love it, pen and ink work proves soul-satisfying. For those who hate it (and many do), this medium becomes a torturous effort. We use archival quality Micron pens in the studio as they are inexpensive, maintenance-free, water-proof, fade-proof, and vary-sized from very fine to broad brush. Artists can achieve marvelous effects by applying ink in contour strokes, lines, crosshatching, controlled scribbling, and stippling. That is the art of putting ink on the paper one dot at a time. "Ya gotta love it!"
Watercolor pencil
For those who find using traditional watercolor somewhat frustrating and difficult, we offer the simpler medium of watercolor pencil. The artist lays color onto watercolor paper much as one would lay down colored pencil pigment. Then the painter applies water with a brush, producing the effect of a watercolor painting. This pencil-stroke method provides so much more control than the elusive original watercolor one.
Mixed Media
Simply put, this method involves the mixing any or all of the above media together into one piece of art.
Oil painting
This art of applying oil paint onto a canvas creates realistic, impressionistic, abstract, or a variety of other images into a textural painting. Learning how to mix colors sits at the heart of the medium.
