 As the popularity of our First Thursday Art Demonstrations continues to grow, we have decided to transition the class from a $15 fee to a pay-what-you-can donation system. After receiving many requests from students around the world where $15 would be a barrier to entry, we decided to make this shift in order to bring equitable access to anyone seeking knowledge about how to draw and paint realistically. We are excited that so many people have already signed up for our First Thursday Art Demonstration on January 7th from 7-9pm EST, and we invite you to be one of them! Join us for an international evening of honing your drawing and painting skills. Enjoy the peace of watching someone else draw and paint or create art along with Mandy and apply the skills being taught. All are welcome, so make sure to bring your art-minded friends. What do you think about this change? Leave your comments below :)
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What is Atelier? Notional Space? Contours?Fret not my friend, this is your go-to dictionary for all those wonky terms people who draw and paint realistically like to throw around. This is an ever expanding project, so check back regularly for the newest definitions! Atelier: The French word for "studio". A place where artists learn realistic drawing, painting, and sculpting skills.
 Artist Mandy Theis teaching students how to draw in the School of Atelier Arts Atelier What does "Atelier" mean?"Atelier" is simply the French word for "studio". It is a place where artists train in order to master realistic drawing and painting skills. Today, this French term continues to be in use, as that is where most American painters acquired their realistic drawing and painting training throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. What about today?Today, the term "Ateliers" refer to specialty art schools that train students in realism drawing and painting skills. Essentially, they teach you how to draw realistically, like the Old Masters. By mastering technical drawing and painting skills, artists are able to achieve on paper and canvas anything their heart desires. Learning how to draw is the same as learning any other skill. There is no magic to it. It simply requires focused practice under the tutelage of a master. If you want to learn how to draw at a high level, you need to train with someone who has the skills you are looking for and devote time and effort to learning it. You can find people with high levels of drawing training willing to teach you how to draw realistically in places called "ateliers." How does Atelier training work?Below, you can see an example of my drawing of a plaster cast before attending an atelier and after attending an atelier. Ateliers are VERY good at teaching you technical drawing and painting skills, and attending one is the best way to efficiently master the art of realistic drawing and painting. The main idea behind Atelier training is to start students with very basic concepts, and build to more complex concepts. This is why many Ateliers will have students draw for a year or more before moving onto painting. This allows students to master shape, line, and form before adding in even more complex concepts that are introduced with color.
Where did Atelier Training come from?The vast body of knowledge required to draw and paint realistically can be found in Ateliers. This collected body of artistic skills and ideas come from many different places. For example, in Western art the primary mode of showing depth in a picture plane is to use linear perspective. But that is not the only way to show depth in a picture plane. In Japanese ink painting, artists developed a way of showing the depth of a picture plane by changing the hardness and softness of the edges of their subjects. For example, a mountain that was intended to look very far away would have a soft, fuzzy edge to account for atmospheric perspective. The Impressionists in particular adopted this technical idea into their work and it became part of the collective body of atelier knowledge within ateliers that trace their lineage through William McGregor Paxton, an American Impressionist. Enjoying this article? Join our newsletter full of art delights today!  Students Drawing & Painting in an Atelier Just as the collected body of math knowledge has multiple origins (Arabic numerals and the Pythagorean Theorem just to name a few), atelier knowledge has multiple origins. The intent behind ateliers is to collect and share what is known about technical art skills with the next generation of artists. The contemporary Atelier movement strives to provide equitable access to artistic knowledge so that all artists have free choice in what techniques and skills to utilize in their own artwork. If your heart has ever pined to be able to draw and paint your ideas exactly the way you envision them in your mind's eye, Atelier training is for you! Don't wait, start your Atelier journey today by signing up for School of Atelier Art's First Thursday Painting Demonstrations. AuthorMandy Theis is a licensed art teacher and former Co-President of the Washington Art Education Association. She knows that anyone can learn to draw and paint realistically that as access to a teacher with these skills. Ready to improve your drawing and painting game? Join her newsletter for lesson plans, musings, & other art delights delivered right to your inbox. Why do grown adults insist they can not draw as well as a preschooler? When I tell someone that I am an artist, more often than not they respond with “I can’t even draw a stick figure.” As a certified art teacher, I happen to know from both anecdotal evidence and the Creative Curriculum for Preschool that drawing stick figures is a 3- and 4-year-old skill. Why, then, do grown adults continue to insist that they are not capable of drawing as well as a preschooler?  Many adults would be embarrassed to admit they had a preschool level of math (adding), reading (think c-a-t), or social skills (did you share the office donuts?). Why not take pride in being at least as visually literate as a preschooler by honestly attempting to draw a stick figure? When faced with a pencil and paper and pressed to attempt a stick figure, most adults will produce one because it is well within their ability to do so. The statement “I can’t even draw a stick figure” is more often the expression of a belief that “I can’t draw, I’ve never been good at it, and I’m afraid to really try.” Enjoying this article? Join our newsletter full of art delights here. The statement 'I can't even draw a stick figure' is more often the expression of a belief that 'I can't draw, I've never been good at it, and I'm afraid to really try.'" I argue that the issue at hand isn’t that someone can’t draw, it is that they have not yet been taught how to draw representationally (which in my experience is what most people are aspiring to when they say they wish to draw). Like reading, drawing realistically is its own set of skills that takes time and training under a knowledgeable person in order to learn. An illiterate person is not likely to be able to teach you how to read, and art instructors without representational drawing training are unlikely to be able to teach you how to draw realistically. Ready to draw? Download our free art lessons, including Artist's Stick Figure Art is a vast field with niches in abstract expressionism and various other non-representational "-isms". If you want to draw realistically, you need to find an art instructor that has realistic drawing skills, and not all art instructors do. So if you have tried learning how to draw in the past and failed, it's not because you just don't have "it". It's that you didn't have access to a teacher with the skillset you were looking to acquire. If you want to draw realistically, you need to find an art instructor that has realistic drawing skills, and not all art instructors do." Luckily for you, I am an art teacher with representational drawing training and I am going to show you how to draw a stick figure. Not just any old stick figure, but a good stick figure that will help you draw realistically if you choose to pursue stick figures to their natural conclusions (i.e. full figure drawings). Hopefully, everyone reading this now 1) believes that they are capable of drawing a stick figure and 2) will give learning how to draw a stick figure an honest try. Good. If you wish to draw a stick figure well, it is important to understand that the "sticks" really represent bones in the human skeleton, which would eventually be filled out with flesh to create a believable figure. In order for your drawing to have a believable feel to it, these "bones" need to be the right proportion to each each other. Otherwise, you might end up with some very fantastical looking beasts, but they won't necessarily look human. So how do you create a stick figure with good proportion? This free slide presentation will show you step-by-step exactly how to draw a stick figure with good proportions where the "sticks" accurately represent the sizes of human bones in relation to the figure as a whole. You see, you can draw a stick figure. A good one. A useful one. One that you can build on to create more complex figure drawings if you so desire. But first, you have to believe it is possible. P.S. Want to learn more art skills? Check out all of our free art lesson plans.Did this article change your mind about drawing? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. AuthorMandy Theis is a licensed art teacher and former Co-President of the Washington Art Education Association. She knows that anyone can learn to draw and paint realistically that as access to a teacher with these skills. Ready to improve your drawing and painting game? Join her newsletter for lesson plans, musings, & other art delights delivered right to your inbox.  Hello Lovely Art Teachers & Friends, and welcome to the Dept. of Aesthetics blog!
My name is Mandy Theis, and I am a classically trained artist and licensed art teacher. I know that anyone can learn how to draw who takes the time to learn from someone who has the skills. I started this blog to help answer all the questions that land in my inbox every day about drawing and painting. My goal is to provide quality content about how to draw and paint well, and how to teach art skills successfully. In this blog, I am going to share with you everything I know about drawing and painting - from materials and methods to introducing you to people, places, and ideas that will help you improve your drawing and painting skills. I'm also going to share with you everything I know about how to efficiently teach art skills to others. Have a question about drawing or painting? Want to see me cover a specific topic? Make sure to leave requests and comments so I can provide the knowledge you want most! I look forward to this journey into ArtEducationLand with all of you! |
Dept. of Aesthetics BlogAuthorMandy Theis is a licensed art teacher and atelier-trained artist. She is the former Co-President of the Washington Art Education Association and Director of School of Atelier Arts. Archives
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