Deborah Paris has three upcoming online classes that offer a unique learning opportunity for the artist or art student.

Drawing & Painting Trees – August 19-September 16, 2011. For landscape artists, trees are arguably the most important raw material of our craft and art. Artists in the 19th century routinely sketched and painted studies of these sentinels of nature in order to understand their structure as well as their artistic bearing. These drawings and studies were then used to create larger studio works.

John Carlson, author of Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting (the bible of landscape painting) rightly tells us that the way to learn to paint trees is by “much drawing of trees”. Through drawing and observation, we will learn to paint not only their anatomy, but their line, character, and the emotions they can inspire.

Field Sketching for Landscape Painters -September 30-October 28, 2011 . Working from Nature and direct observation is the time honored way to learn how to paint landscapes. Unfortunately, many aspiring landscape painters miss the essential first step: learning to draw and sketch in the field. If you are unable to draw the landscape you will have a much more difficult time learning to paint it convincingly. Most classes and workshops jump into plein air painting without giving students any tools to make a success of their efforts. This course is designed to give you the tools to draw and sketch in the field with confidence, both improving your plein air paintings and leading to better, finished work in the studio.

Painting the Luminous Landscape -October 21-November 18, 2011. This course is designed for intermediate to advanced oil painters, and will introduce students to the Tonalist landscape aesthetic and techniques. Tonalism, a distinct style of landscape painting which developed in the late 19th century, is experiencing a resurgence of interest today. It is characterized by simple design, a narrow range of values, a limited but luminous palette and an emphasis on atmospheric effects in the landscape, particularly during the hours of dawn, sunset, dusk and evening. Techniques for creating underpaintings, glazing and scumbling will be covered.

Class sizes are limited and they go fast. Register or find more information at this link

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