“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 →

“From the Sketchbook,” toned paper

Last week in “from the sketchbook,” we showed you how Jeffrey Watts utilized toned paper and white charcoal to explore his figure invention exercises.  This week, we take a look at how a few other Watts Atelier instructors use their toned paper sketchbooks. While Jeff’s figure inventions were executed entirely in white charcoal, these sketches… Continue reading →

Skill Building Challenge: Cycle 2 announced!

Announcing “Skill Building Challenge: Cycle 2, Embracing Portraiture”   Our first Skill Building Challenge was a great success;  The students who participated saw their skill levels jump in those short four weeks due to a dedicated schedule and the driving force that a bit of friendly competition brings.  Now that our first challenge, Cycle 1,… Continue reading →

“From the Sketchbook,” White Charcoal

Sometimes drawing in a slightly different way than we are used to can help get the artist past mental roadblocks, and free up their mind to explore and enjoy the art of sketching. Here, Jeff Watts has utilized white charcoal on grey paper for a few figure invention sketches.  Next time you reach for your… 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 →

The Skill Building Challenge Cycle 1 results are in..!

  The results of our first Skill Building Challenge are in…! The winner, who we will announce shortly in this post, will be receiving an original figure drawing (pictured above) by Watts Atelier founder Jeff Watts. Our Skill Building Challenges are designed as a friendly competition that’s geared towards advancing the participants’ skill base.  Each… 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 →

Down for Maintenance, Midnight June 18th

Due to mandatory maintenance and upgrades to our system, Watts Atelier Online will be temporarily unavailable for a brief period of time, starting at Midnight PST, June 18th. Thank you for your patience as we work to better the Watts Atelier Online experience for you. All the best, -The Watts Atelier Team

“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 →

“From the Sketchbook,” Mini Master Studies

When one thinks “Master Study,” they generally envision a scale replication of an old master’s piece, painstakingly reproduced in order to better understand their process (along the lines of this study after Bargue, by Watts Instructor Lucas Graciano).  While these types of studies are fantastic learning opportunities, the hard reality is that many students lead a… 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 →

New Content released; Portrait Painting Phase III

  We are proud to announce the release of our “Portrait Painting: Phase III lessons.  While we are still fine tuning a few videos and features for Portrait Phase III, our excitement over these lessons has led us to release them now to you, our students, so you may continue to push your learning and further… Continue reading →

“From the Sketchbook,” Preliminary Drawings with E.M. Gist

While we’ve talked about utilizing sketchbooks for structured study, thumbnail exploration, and casual drawing, there is another area of sketchbook use that we haven’t delved into yet; the preliminary drawing. This is the stage where an idea starts to become a realized, “finished” image.  While every artist works differently, the preliminary drawing is generally a… 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 →

“From the Sketchbook,” indulging with Jeff Watts

One of the most common uses of the sketchbook is simple indulgence; Drawing what you enjoy, and having fun while doing it.  Practices such as these are usually what leads individuals down the path of the artists in the first place, and drawing for fun is especially important to remember as one starts to seriously study… 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 →

“From the Sketchbook,” Practicing likenesses and texture with sellswords and the undead

Today in “From the Sketchbook,” we take a look at how illustrator and Watts Atelier instructor Erik Gist utilizes his sketchbook to improve his ability to capture likenesses, as well as his texture rendering and indication abilities. If you are familiar with Erik’s work, it should be no surprise that he is a fan 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 →

“From the Sketchbook,” thumbnail sketches by Jeff Watts

Exploring composition is an important first step in the planning of a piece. To find an interesting idea, the right visual balance, and to avoid visual tangents, many artists make small, quick “thumbnail” sketches. These sketches aren’t meant to capture details so much as figure out the overall staging of a piece. Working quickly, artists… Continue reading →

A new feature for online students: “Skill Building Challenges”

While hard work, proper instruction, and dedication to the craft are the best ways to build one’s skills, outside factors can help give the student or professional a new reason to apply themselves and provide an additional “push” to their studies.  For the professional, deadlines, art shows, and high profile clients are often reasons for… 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 →

“From the Sketchbook,” our new weekly blog feature

Every artist keeps (or should keep, rather) a sketchbook. Sketchbooks can help you record ideas, solve visual problems, strengthen and commit lessons to memory, and so much more. Every Thursday for the next several weeks, we will be giving you a peek into our instructor’s sketchbooks in a new blog segment appropriately titled “From the Sketchbook.”… Continue reading →