The Return of Skill Building Challenges! Portrait: Construction to Finish
Students! We are happy to announce the return of the “Skill Building Challenges” that were temporarily paused while we were migrating to our new forum and website. Now that the new student forums are up and running, we are happy to begin a new round for this month! The format is essentially the same – every month… Continue reading
Painting with the Instructors!
Thank you to everyone who joined us at the Atelier on Sunday! We hope you enjoyed watching the instructor do their thing! If you missed the video you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWJTKNJYsf0 A lot of the viewers mentioned that they would like to see some images of the work so I thought I would snap a… Continue reading
Skill Building Challenge 23 now live! Cycle 21 and 22 winners announced!
With the close of our Cycle 22 Skill Building Challenge, we are now officially halfway through our Master Skill Building Challenge event, with guest juror Donato Giancola. We are pleased to announce that our cycle 23 Skill Building Challenge is now live in our student forums, open for all enrolled students to join. As we… Continue reading
Second Annual Master Skill Building Challenge, with Donato Giancola
It is with great excitement that we announce our Second Annual Master Skill Building Challenge, with Guest Juror Donato Giancola. Our Annual Master Skill Building Challenge is designed to help our students push themselves in their training and help them to become better, more skilled and more proficient artists. With these goals in mind, we have reached… Continue reading
Skill Building Cycle 18 Winners Announced!
Our Cycle 18 skill Building Challenge was structured to celebrate the release of our Still Life Phase 3 lessons, now available to Full Access students. Cycle 18 took the art of still life a step further for our students, as they had to create their own themed still life setup. We’d like to offer our… Continue reading
The Winners of the First Annual Master Skill Building Challenge
We are extremely proud to announce the winners of our first annual Master Skill Building Challenge. This contest, open to all of our enrolled students, was made up of 6 individual, month-long challenges, and was designed to push participant’s skill sets in order to help them grow as representational artists. Each student’s final portfolio was then submitted… Continue reading
Our First Annual Master Skill Building Challenge, starting January 11th, is right around the corner!
Our first annual Master Skill Building Challenge, with guest juror James Gurney, is rapidly approaching. We’d like to take a moment to go over what students enrolled in our online program can expect, as far as the workload and rules are concerned, when the contest launches in earnest on January 11th. The Master Skill… Continue reading
The New Year at the Watts Atelier: Master Skill Building Challenge, Bootcamp blogs, and more!
Happy New Year! We’re thrilled to bring in the New Year and welcome all of the exciting events on the horizon for 2016 here at the Watts Atelier. Here’s a peek at what the first part of 2016 has in store for our students… Master Skill Building Challenge, with James Gurney Students enrolled… Continue reading
Assignment Grading Inquiry
The education of our students is of the highest importance to us here at the Watts Atelier. Our dedication to your learning is what led us to create our unique lesson structure and assingment grading system, complete with feedback to help you, our students, excell in your studies. We’ve recently recieved a few reports from… Continue reading
First Annual Master Skill Building Challenge, with guest juror James Gurney
We are pleased to announce our first Annual Master Skill Building Challenge, with Guest Juror James Gurney Our primary goal at the Watts Atelier is to help our students become better, more skilled and more proficient artists. It’s with this goal in mind that we have reached out to award winning artists and illustrators, and created… Continue reading
Realizing your Artistic Journey, with Jeffrey Watts
I’d like to thank everyone for their overwhelming response to my youtube podcast, “How to Train to Become a Successful Working Artist.” I’m thrilled to see so many artists and students interested in learning what it takes to become a working professional. With that in mind, I’d like to expand beyond the realm of… Continue reading
One more day to bid on a Friday Night Live original painting!
Own the painting from our first ever Halloween Friday Night Live workshop, and help a great cause at the same time. There’s one more day left to bid on E.M. Gist’s painting of Boris Karloff’s “The Mummy.” All proceeds will be donated to Promises2kids, a non profit organization dedicated to the needs of foster… Continue reading
Welcome the Guilds, on November 10th
Join us in welcoming the next step in our online program: The Guilds Learning on your own can be very overwhelming. The truth is that you are not alone. You are part of a vibrant community as a member of the Watts Online School. We’ve put together a program that leverages the knowledge and… 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
“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
Watts Atelier Illustration Boot Camp FAQ, featured at Imaginefx.com
“Alessandra,” by Michael C. Hayes Do you have questions regarding our upcoming Watts Atelier Illustration Boot Camp? We have the answers. Watts Atelier staff member, student and freelance illustrator Tom Babbey recently had the chance to sit down with Watts Instructors E.M. Gist, Lucas Graciano, and Michael C. Hayes, to talk with them about… Continue reading
The Watts Atelier Online Experience
One of the most common questions we receive from students who are considering studying with us is “How exactly does your online program work?” There are a plethora of online programs available, and it’s understandable for the student to want to know what sets our program apart from others. To help give you a better… Continue reading
Utilizing models and reference in your paintings
Whether your goal is to become a fine artist or an illustrator, if you are planning to create finished, figurative pieces you more than likely will be utilizing models and props as tools of reference for your paintings. To give you an idea of just what goes into getting “good reference,” we will be taking… Continue reading
Specialty Classes Now Available
“Siege,” by Robert Watts We are pleased to announce that the first of our Specialty Classes, “Drapery” with Erik M. Gist and “Painting Mood and Atmosphere in Gouache” with Robert Watts, are now available. These exciting new additions to our curriculum are designed to help the student build their skills in specific areas that will… Continue reading
Scheduled Site Shutdown for Maintenance on Thursday, 1/16, 11pm PST
Time to take a break… The site will be offline and unavailable due to scheduled maintenance on Thursday, January 16th at 11pm PST. This downtime will last two hours, and will be part of a monthly maintenance routine. Thank you for your patience during this time, and Happy Drawing! -The Watts Atelier Team
Announcing our new Study Groups
Online schools such as ours offer the immense convenience of being able to study with the top artists in their field from the comfort of your own home…But how does an online school recreate the camaraderie of a brick-and-mortar school, with it’s personal interactions between students? If you’ve visited our Member Forums in the past… Continue reading