Painting Lessons in Amsterdam, Why go Private?

My drawing lessons and painting lessons in Amsterdam city centre are private, although I agree to teach to couples or small groups.

What I like to offer is what I would have liked to receive during the limited painting instruction I once signed up for, and which to my mind did no deliver.  Given that I have a house studio, this allows me to deal with 1 or 2 people at a time.

Most painting classes have you come to an atelier or studio and paint away.  The price may be per lesson or per 'course' and you are told that you can get 10 three-hour lessons for 300 Euro. You do the math in your head and think "WOW, I'm paying only 10 Euro per hour to learn how to paint!"

That's the first mistake.  In reality, you're paying 10 Euro per hour to paint somewhere and receive occasional (and perhaps very good) advice on how to do it.  These are not 30 hours of learning, they are 30 hours of painting or practicing.  It is not the same thing.

This distinction is crucial, when you start to realize just what a time consuming activity drawing and painting can be.  I will say this as clearly and plainly as I can:  It makes absolutely no sense to put in the practice hours while at the same time paying someone. 

This is the first reason that my Amsterdam painting lessons and drawing classes are private. They separate learning time from practice time.  No need to pay me while you're taking all the time in the world and doing things you already know how to do.  Do that on your own (literally) free time.  The time you pay for, next to an instructor, should be spent making the most out of what this person knows, asking all the questions, discussing the work, learning a new technique and how to apply it, etc.

The drawing and painting you actually do during these lessons is focused on the learning of one specific thing or technique.  You try the technique out, see if it works and figure things out with the help of the experts.  Then you practice it on your own time.

Compare this idea with that of learning how to play a musical instrument.  You don't pay a teacher to come over and ring away at your guitar for 3 hours.  You sit down, discuss and learn what needs to be learned and then during the days between lessons you do all the ringing away and the practicing.

The second reason why my Amsterdam painting lessons are private, is that of positive criticism.
 Not everyone knows how to give it, and not everyone knows how to get it, but it is a crucial part of improving.  It is well known that you must become your harshest critic and the great masters of art always were.  If you let things go, and cut yourself slack, the results may not be as good as they would otherwise.

A few things tend to happen during a painting lesson with this regard. Other members of the class may be too encouraging to keep things nice, or perhaps each will have a totally different opinion about what to make our work improve.  You may not be comfortable receiving criticism from them or from the teacher in that setting.  Finally, you may begin to compare your work to that of others and draw unwarranted conclusions about your own talent and capabilities.

In a private setting, you can openly discuss the bits you find challenging and receive a stern criticism about your work from someone who is an expert and who's job it is to raise your artistic level, without the risk of feeling like you came short.  You are there to learn.

Then there is the obvious stuff during painting lessons, such as the fact that the teacher's attention is solely dedicated to your work, you can choose your subject with more flexibility and even call the shots about when and how to take a break.

Contrary to the social and fun idea we have about painting lessons, an atelier with practicing artists is usually as quite as a mausoleum for most of the time.  The painting 'lessons' with a real social value, such as the 'wine and pallet' types are great fun but you will not make great progress beyond what you already know.

Anyway, that's my take on the whole private lessons bit!

Painting Classes in Amsterdam

Hi all,

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I've started offering private painting lessons in Amsterdam, right in the center of the city in my canal studio/house.

To satisfy lord Google's need for lots of text about my website, and also help you understand my approach in some more detail, I'll be creating some posts about the whole thing here in my blog and if anyone has questions, you can always call me with the contact details provided on my website:

www.juanpablobran.com/lessons.html

The painting classes I offer are not for everyone.  Many art enthusiasts think of painting lessons as a place where you go and explore things around.  This is no doubt a lot of fun and I've done it myself, but the results were not to my satisfaction.  The artistic results I mean, the socializing was great!

So these Amsterdam painting classes are much more focused and structured and the value you get in return is the ability to start producing art that you may not have though possible before.

One of the thing my painting classes do, and which may be disappointing is to start with the very basics of drawing.  So for those who want to waltz in and start putting brushes to a canvas, I do apologize in advance.  Not gonna happen.

Why?  Well, it was stated at the entrance of the old French Academy of Art in Paris:  "Well drawn is well painted".  Painting schools in Amsterdam may not have had this inscribed at their entrance, which may explain why there's lots of old masters and very few new ones!

Trying to paint while dragging around sloppy drawing skills is painful to do and painful to witness. So painting lessons begin with making sure your drawing skills are really solid.  Even if you have been drawing for some time, there is great benefit from learning the academic approach.  It provides you a foundation on which to fall upon when things are not going the way you expect.

My webpage on painting classes provides you with a quick glimpse of what this means:

www.juanpablobran.com/lessons.html

So what are interesting positive points of an Amsterdam painting class which is based on the classical methods:


1. It gives you a foundation to learn painting, which is easy to learn by anyone regardless of background, personality or talent

2. It breaks down the creation of an artwork into small and easy to execute steps which make it possible to learn to paint anything you like and do it very well

3. It demystifies art and allows you to look at it as a craft with tools, techniques and a language that every painting class should be teaching before anything else

4. The paintings of the masters will become more understandable to you, and not less but in fact more amazing and enjoyable

5. You will create the art you want, at the level you decide.  You will be able to become the best critic of your work, because you will know which aspects to look for.


6. You will be able to draw and paint any subject, in almost any style you choose.


Now, before I start to sound like a snake oil salesmen, I must say that learning the method and practicing it is hard work.  That is both good and bad news.  It means anyone who's willing to work at it can do it, but the work has to be done thoroughly.


So that's today's post about this.  My website contains some image examples of the art I produce thanks to this method, as well as some steps followed in their creation.

Come visit soon!

Art Lessons in Amsterdam, Classical Drawing and Painting

Learning to draw and paint in Amsterdam, following the style and principles of the old masters should be readily available, one would think.

However, as some of my earlier posts will tell you, this is currently not the case.  The availability of instruction that focuses on the classical way of learning art is extremely scarce.   I myself found this while trying to learn to draw and paint, and I had to rely on internet downloads and the purchase of foreign (mostly American and British) books to learn the craft.

Since then not much has changed and I was surprised to see this confirmed in the latest issue of Palet magazine, which comments how Florence in Italy, for example, boasts a classical atelier-type art school which Amsterdam could only dream of nowadays.

So, being one to take matters into my own hands, I now offer art lessons in Amsterdam on a private basis via my website:

http://juanpablobran.com/lessons.html

Now, even though the website tells you all about it, lord Google demands that I write and write on the subject so that my website is considered worthy of appearing somewhere near page one, so in this post I will tell you something about the principles and the process.

One of the first things you will notice about my painting lessons in Amsterdam is that they are private, mostly.

The reason for this, is that I'm not the lucky owner or unlucky tenant of a nice studio or atelier. I work from home, and I'm proud to say that my kitchen counter has produced good art.  This is not something I'm ashamed of, in fact I'm proud of it, and it is a more real and feasible scenario for 99% of people out there than a large beautiful studio with North light coming in.

This means your Amsterdam drawing or painting lessons will take place at my home, your home or when the weather allows, outdoors  at a nice location.

The second reason my painting classes in Amsterdam are private is because I'm no certified teacher and to tell the truth, I would not know how to deal with a group. The logistics of it alone make me nervous and I don't feel like spending a lot of time organizing, scheduling and coordinating.  I like to draw, paint and focus on the task at hand.

Next thing to say about these new little Amsterdam art classes is the style that I practice and intend to teach.  The style is strictly academic.  A quick look at my website www.juanpablobran.com will show you I'm currently focused on classical realism.  This is not to say other styles are less interesting, less worthy or that my own artistic style will not change later.  However if you want to produce beautiful art, you have to learn the visual principles, and I'm convinced that these principles are best learned in an Amsterdam painting course that sticks to the classics.

Why?

Because they were bloody good.  They discovered (or invented) color, composition, drawing and painting techniques that hit a solid cord on our human notion of esthetics.  You are well adviced to study why this is and learn how to use it.  If you don't you are tossing a coin hoping to get lucky and the odds are so dramatically stacked against you that the result is almost always guaranteed to fall very short of your potential, if it's not downright ugly.

This is my own personal opinion anyway.

But lets look at what this approach of art classes can achieve, rather than what it avoids.  What it does is to remove the element of 'talent' out of the equation.    The normal art enthusiast has this expectation that a creative personality is necessary to create good art, and that trying random stuff results in good art if you have the right genes.

The academic approach takes your drawing and painting to a totally different level, in a very short period of time because it starts from a completely different standpoint.  It uses a number of very simple and proven ideas, which when properly used and combined, produce amazing results that anybody can achieve.

My Amsterdam painting lessons take this as a starting point, and I really do believe this can make a difference in the level that you can reach with your art.

You may not believe this but I only started to draw in August 2012.  Before that I could only draw smileys and stick men.  Now you may not have the same amount of time on your hands, the same knack for method or visual acuity, which is where taking lessons comes in handy, but if you live in Amsterdam and you want to become an artist whether it is drawing or painting, my lessons can help you get that underway.

One integral part of the painting classes I offer in Amsterdam is knowing the masters.  In itself, Amsterdam lends itself perfectly to anyone who wants to study how art, drawing and painting is done to the highest levels.  The Rijksmuseum just re-opened.  The Hermitage, the van Gogh, are all places where we can go and figure out how it's really done.

However, to learn how to draw and paint in Amsterdam, there is visiting a museum and there is visiting a museum.  What are we looking for when we see a piece of art?  We want to evaluate every aspect that makes it good, both from a distance and up close.

Hope this initial post gets you interested, my contact details are on the website and we can discuss at length your artistic ambitions and how I can help you reach them!

How to Paint Like Paul Cezanne

During my first (and last) painting class in Amsterdam, which lasted for about 10 sessions, I was asked to try and paint a still life in the style of Paul Cezanne, which according to my teacher was a simple master to emulate and an easy way to learn technique.

What inevitably followed was a terrible attempt of trying to learn drawing, brushwork, color mixing and composition, all in two 3-hour sessions, with an inevitable weaksauce result:

Frustrated with what had just happened I took a trip to the Hermitage museum, which is a few blocks from my place, and was showing an impressionist exhibition including 3 works by Cezanne.


Here are some of the notes I made from two paintings.  I decided to share them, because we don't usually hear this sort of information from curators and other people who know art.  They tell us what a 'disturbed character' the artist was, how they painted this the year 19xx, or where they lived and who they hung out with during that time, and the feeling conveyed by the piece.  So what I think is lacking in all that is how the bloody painting was made, and my notes may seem mundane, but they are a technical look at a Cezanne.

Landscape Notes, The Banks of the Marne

Limited Palette:

First thing you notice is how limited his palette is. Basically down to white, green, blue and brown.  This gives imediate unity and atmosphere to the piece.

Brushwork:

Then there's one of his big trademarks, the short uni-directional brush strokes. These are grouped in directional patches which are determined by areas of the same color and value.  Contrary to the impression of totally loose and careless spontaneity that his work protracts, I have the feeling it was rather meticulously executed.

The brushwork seems soft and using rather meager amounts of thinned oil paint. Texture doesn't seem to be a concern and you can clearly discern the canvas grain through the paint.

There is no visible light source, he goes for atmosphere instead

Finish:

Several patches of the canvas are left totally untouched and you can see the white or faded yellow showing through.  Also, he doesn't seem concerned with softening his brush strokes too much.  They seem carefully made, and then left as they are.

He also seems to leave some of the drawing outlines around objects such as mountains.

Still Life Notes, Fruits

There's significant differences here versus the landscape. I'm not good at judging composition yet, but he seems to divide spaces quite radically the wall, the fruit, the cloth, the vases and the table.  Each of them being of a certain value family.

Although the brushwork and outlines around the objects still make this a very recognizable Cezanne, the amount of paint he uses is much more generous compared to the landscape.  The background only uses directional strokes around the objects on the foreground.

Also, the direction of the brushstrokes is sometimes aiding, and sometimes in oposition to giving body and roundness to objects such as the bread and the apples.

He uses hard edges for his main objects.

Other details include the fact that his table and vases are always crooked and misaligned.  Same goes for the shape of objects like the bowl.

He uses several layers of color for the apples, which have some 4 different tones of orange and red.

For painting classes in Amsterdam and other art lessons:  www.juanpablobran.com/lessons.html