Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.
- Edgar Degas
Atelier Armetta is a full-time, year-round classical drawing and painting program for serious artists who aspire to be professionals. Located in Glen Cove, New York, just over 20 miles from New York City, the Atelier is housed within the studios of the Long Island Academy of Fine Art, Long Island's oldest classical art school.
The Atelier offers a sequential course of study based on that found in 19th-century European ateliers, where the primary objective was the training of the eye, to see shapes and proportions correctly, and the development of the skill to model form convincingly. Historically, this has served as the foundation for good painting.
Drawing includes three and a half quarters of the content of painting.[...] One must
keep right on drawing; draw with your eyes when you cannot draw with a pencil.
As long as you do not hold a balance between your seeing of things and your
execution, you will do nothing that is really good.
- Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Accordingly, Atelier students begin with the Cours de Dessin of Charles Bargue [http://www.daheshmuseum.org/museumshop/index.php?productID=285] (created with Jean-Leon Gero^me), copying Bargue's lithographs of casts, copies of Master drawings, and figures. Students then move on to cast drawing, and eventually to grisaille painting and finally full-color painting.
Aside from the above-mentioned drawing practices, students in the Atelier work from a live figure model throughout the week, and receive individual critiques from the instructor during this time. (This figure work also progresses from drawing to grisaille to full-color painting.) Supplemental courses in subjects such as Artistic Anatomy [link to video], Composition and Design [link to video], and all of the Long Island Academy's workshops in various subjects with visiting artists, are also available. Depending on the student's individual development, he or she may also create copies of Old Master drawings and paintings and work on portrait and still-life painting.
Interested applicants should contact the school's administrator at
646.508.7645 or flora@liafa.com.
