“Demonstrating the Craft,” Figure Painting with Jeff Watts, Part 2

A few weeks back, we gave you a look at the start of Jeff Watt’s in class demo for his “Long pose figure painting” class.  This week on “Demonstrating the Craft,” we revisit the demo and take a look at Jeff’s progress on the piece.

“Demonstrating the Craft,” With E.M. Gist

Watts Atelier Instructor E.M. Gist is well known for his horror, fantasy and sci-fi illustrations, but the skills needed to paint the imaginary creatures and characters in his illustrations are all honed by studying reality. Taking a look at Erik Gist’s demos from this term can help the aspiring fantasy illustrator understand why studying from… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” Figure painting with Jeff Watts

With our summer break at an end, classes have once again started up at our Atelier in California.  This term brings a special demo-viewing opportunity for those enrolled in Jeff Watt’s “Figure painting, 5 week pose.” Traditionally, our painting courses kick off with a single day dedicated to a painting demonstration, where students get to watch… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con

This past week marked the annual arrival of the San Diego Comic Con, the largest comic and pop culture convention in the world.  As always, the Watts Atelier Team was there, conducting panels and participating in signings on the showroom floor. E.M. Gist, signing alongside Guillermo del Toro and Mike Huddleston   The Most exciting… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft” at the Watts Illustration Bootcamp

This past week marked the start of our first “Watts Illustration Boot Camp,” an intense 6-day workshop designed to strengthen our students’ illustrative storytelling abilities and improve their technical skills within their chosen medium.  The workshop’s instructors (award-winning illustrators and Watts Atelier instructors E.M. Gist, Lucas Graciano, and Michael C. Hayes) have been spending hours of… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” Comic Covers with E.M. Gist

This past week marked the release of a new online specialty course, “Painted Comic Covers,” with Watts Atelier Instructor and illustrator E.M. Gist.  On this week’s installment of “Demonstrating the Craft, we take a brief look at the course and at Gist’s process through screenshots of the video lessons themselves. Erik’s process starts where all artists’ visual… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” Anatomy Tutorials with E.M. Gist

As students at our atelier advance in their skills and begin to understand the fundamentals of drawing, their questions during our instructors’ demos begin to turn to one subject in particular; anatomy. Once a student has a firm grasp on the foundations of drawing (edge, value, and shape) they often work to understand the subtleties… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” Head Quicksketch Demos

Last week on “Demonstrating the craft,” we took a look at some figure quicksketch demos by Watts Atelier instructor E.M. Gist.  This week, we take a look at a few demos for our other variation of quicksketch; Head Quicksketch. These head quicksketch demos, done by Watts Atelier Founder Jeff Watts and Watts Atelier Instructor Lucas… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” Quicksketch demos

Last week on “Demonstrating the Craft,” we introduced you to a “long demo” completed over several sittings, by Watts Atelier instructor Lucas Graciano.  This week we bring you something from the opposite end of the demonstration spectrum; E.M. Gist’s quicksketch demos. These in-class demos were completed by Erik Gist for his quicksketch course at the… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” Long Drawing Demo

While most of our in-class demos range from 25 minute drawings to three hour paintings, some of our demos stretch a bit longer.  These type of demos, usually done for long figure/portrait drawing sessions or multiple week painting poses, are generally done by our instructors  as they work alongside our students.  The advantages of these types… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” Analyzing Angles

Analyzing the angles and relationships between key areas of the figure is an important part of the life drawing process.  At the Watts Atelier, we embrace comparative measurement techniques in our drawings.  This practice often relies on comparing and analyzing the angles between features to obtain proportional accuracy in your drawing.  Note how Watts Atelier Instructor… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft” Still life with Meadow Gist

As previously mentioned here on “Demonstrating the Craft,”  all of our ten-week painting courses at the Watts Atelier begin with a 3-hour instructor painting demo.  Still life painting presents it’s own set of challenges, unique and separate from other painting disciplines;  Students must work to understand textures and their indications, the specularity and reflective properties of… Continue reading →

Demonstrating the Craft: Construction of the Head

Not all of our in-class demos are done with technique demonstration and rendering in mind.  In fact, the vast majority of instructor demonstrations in our classes are completed to clarify something far more important; The fundamentals. Without a solid understanding of the fundamentals, a strong finished piece can not exist.  In this demo from last week, we take a… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft:” Landscape demos

This week on “Demonstrating the Craft,” we bring you two demos from Robert Watt’s “Landscape Painting Essentials” course.  Robert is known for his strong work ethic (and his charming wit), which over the course of his decades-long career has translated into an ability to execute masterful paintings in a short amount of time.  Each of… Continue reading →

Demonstrating the Craft: Portrait Paintings

This week on “Demonstrating the Craft” we bring you two new portrait paintings, completed last week for our in-class demonstrations.  As painting can be a longer process than  drawing, each of our ten week painting courses begins with a class dedicated entirely to an instructor demo, to highlight the concepts being taught in that particular… Continue reading →

“Demonstrating the Craft,” a new weekly blog feature

Our Instructors (From left to right; Ben, Jeff, Lucas, and Meadow) Demonstrating the Craft We at the Watts Atelier believe that seeing proper technique in action is an important step in the learning process.  Because of this, each one of our courses at our on-location Atelier in Encinitas, CA begins with an instructor demonstration.  Our… Continue reading →