Year: 2014

19 different instructors will be at next month’s Portrait & Figure Festival, including Art League teachers and some others you may not know. Last week, we profiled four of them. See below for an introduction to four more.

The festival is the perfect opportunity to experience both a broad spectrum of viewpoints and an intensive learning experience, including one-on-one coaching sessions where you can discuss whatever you want with the instructor. The festival is open to students of all skill levels who want to learn about painting, drawing, and sculpting portraits and figures!

Tuition is $335 if you register by October 1, and we’ve added a “save my spot” option for students who want to pay half now and half later.

Bill Adair

As you might guess from the picture above, Adair is a framer. He’s also a frame historian, frame conservator, and master gilder, but that’s not all. He’s also an artist, with a sculpture in the collection of the Smithsonian.

If you’re curious what frame history entails, Adair curated two exhibits that answer that question. The first frame exhibit in this country — “The Frame in America, 1700–1900” — opened in 1983, with a followup, “The Frame in America: 1860–1960,” in 1995.

Bill Adair’s Innovator Talk at the festival is titled “Reframing the Conversation.”

Michael Grimaldi

Grimaldi is one of four instructors visiting from the Art Students League of New York, and he teaches at a number of other schools as well — most notably, the Janus Collaborative School of Art, which he co-founded.

In 2004, Grimaldi traveled to the University of Buenos Aires to complete an independent study at the Department of Anatomy in the Facultad Medicina. His first breakout session will be on “Anatomical, Morphological, and Biomechanical Approaches to the Figure,” followed by “Curvilinear Perspective: Theoretical & Practical Adaptations to Interpretation of Space.”

To read a review from a recent workshop student, check out this blog post.

Ephraim Rubenstein

Remember last week’s post, where we mentioned that Costa Vavagiakis’s work was on the cover of Drawing magazine? If you opened that issue up, you’d also find a silverpoint drawing by his colleague, Ephraim Rubenstein, in an article about a New York exhibit on silverpoint. (See both drawings in Rubenstein’s blog post.)

Rubenstein, a New York native, taught at the University of Richmond for many years, as well as RISD and MICA. Currently, he’s on the faculty of The National Academy of Design School of Fine Arts and The Art Students League of New York.

You can read reviews of several of his recent exhibits at the George Billis Gallery website.

He draws and paints in numerous media, but Rubenstein’s talk at the festival will focus on pastel. “The Figure in Pastel: a Bridge between Drawing & Painting” is scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

Scott Hutchison

You’ve likely seen Hutchison’s work, whether at the “Influence & Inspiration” exhibit, the Drawing Marathon in 2012, or other Art League events. But have you seen it in motion?

Animation is the subject of much of Hutchison’s recent work, including this summer’s solo exhibit, “In Sequence,” at the Blackrock Center for the Arts. The animations take different directions and use different media including oils and graphite, but are always riveting to watch.

You can see many of the animations on the artist’s website, here, and hear his innovator talk, “Animation: the Portrait in Motion,” at the Portrait & Figure Festival.

There’s a veritable legion of portrait and figure artists coming to our first-ever Portrait & Figure Festival next month. 14 are Art League veterans and four are visiting from the Art Students League of New York. (A fifth, Dan Thompson, teaches both places!)

The festival is the perfect opportunity to experience both a broad spectrum of viewpoints and an intensive learning experience, including one-on-one coaching sessions where you can discuss whatever you want with the instructor. The festival is open to students of all skill levels who want to learn about painting portraits and figures!

Tuition is $335 if you register by October 1, and we’ve added a “save my spot” option for students who want to pay half now and half later.

19 different instructors will be at the festival. If you’re unfamiliar with their work, here’s an introduction to a few of these skilled artists:

Costa Vavagiakis

Vavagiakis has his work featured in the Winter 2014 issue of Drawing magazine. You can see him in an Art Students League of New York video, below, or in his self-portrait (above, center).

His breakout session is titled “Toned Method: toned paper & drawing instruments for fast portraits.”

Sharon Sprung

In 2005, Sprung’s portrait of a waitress acquaintance was included in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the National Portrait Gallery. (You can read about that portrait here.)

Her breakout session is on “The Features of the Face: Eyes, Nose & Lips.” You can see a little of her approach in this video:

Joe Mullins

Mullins is a Forensic Imaging Specialist at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, where he does forensic work on unidentified crime victims. In 2011, he reconstructed a 2,500-year-old mummy’s face for the Smithsonian exhibit, “Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt.” He teaches a class where students sculpt a head by reconstructing from a replica skull.

At the festival, he’ll be giving a talk on Facial Reconstruction for the Artist.

Danni Dawson

A painter and sculptor, Danni Dawson’s hundreds of portraits include the official portrait of Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Dawson has been teaching for The Art League since 1971, and apprenticed with portrait artist Nelson Shanks.

At the festival, Dawson will give a master demo, participate in the opening keynote and panel discussion, and give a talk with Paul Lucchesi on Sharing Creative Process & Partnership.