Instructors:
Mark English, Gary Kelley, Anita Kunz, Chris Payne, Jon Foster, Natalie Ascencios and Barron Storey, Robert Meganck, Scott Anderson and Robin Eley.
The full-time faculty: Sterling Hundley, John English, Brent Watkinson, Doug Chayka, and George Pratt.
Each week we were given an assignment by a visiting instructor. First, the instructor would present the assignment, and then the initial critique of our thumbnail sketches would be scheduled for the next morning. The final critique would occur the next Monday by the following visiting instructor.
Once the main compositional elements were approved at the thumbnail review, the selected composition would be refined over the course of the week. This next stage, the actual size drawing, is based on research, additional sketches and photo references. Although the preparatory work was laborious and time consuming, the idea was to make the transition to the stage of actual painting smooth and less worrying. However, no matter what great time management skills we had, a lot of good art was happening at all hours of the night and into the morning.
The curriculum consisted of studio hours, presentations, demonstrations, lectures, and life drawing classes. There was a lecture week in the middle of the program, when students did not have any assignment to work on.
We were lucky to get Jillian Tamaki and Sam Weber to come for the lecture week and to find time to visit studios and to talk to students. I truly hope they enjoyed their visit as much as we did.
One of my brightest memories of Academy was Barron Storey and his sketchbooks. During his demonstration Barron worked on three pieces over the course of four hours, with undivided attention from the audience. One was a poster, a second was portrait based on his sketchbook drawings, while third piece was a quick panoramic drawing of the students, who were greatly impressed by Barron’s creativity, engaging conversation, and amazing sketchbooks.
thumbnail sketches
color studies
Final composition, acrylic on textured paper
Mark English Assignment
The first assignment was to create a dynamic composition with recognizable elements of the sunlit Florida landscape and a corresponding color palette, using 2 values per shape.
There were several attempts to construct pleasing swatches/patches of color arranged in pattern-like pictorial space. The final was a variation of a cityscape, organized into a pattern of forms carried through to abstraction. The presence of the orange woman is a reference to the Florida’s state color and state fruit.
Acrylic when applied properly on the right surface is usually helpful in creating flat colorful shapes. However, the descriptive powers of line work had let me down on this.
