Watts on Watts: 2012

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Annual Watts Atelier Holiday Party 2012

Once again we hosted our annual Watts Atelier Holliday shindig celebrating our 20^th Anniversary. I can’t believe it has been that long. I remember the first one and it had all of 10 to 12 people. What a difference two decades makes. Needless to say it went off without a hitch. Thanks to the generosity of our wonderful instructors we raffled off dozens of original paintings, drawings, and classes. All of the proceeds are donated to the Rancho Coastal Human Society, and organization that does wonderful work here in the Encinitas community. I am happy to say we raised just over $1300.00 for the critters. We also executed another round robin style painting relay with all of the instructors painting for 20 minutes each. You can see the results below. This year we had modeling for us a Lincoln impersonator William Peck. I met him several years ago at a Civil War reenactment. He is a spitting image of Lincoln and spends much of his time educating youth on all things Lincoln. He is a great model and we had a blast painting him. I hope you enjoy the pictures and may you and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year from all of us at Watts Atelier. Hopefully we will see you in a class or workshop in the coming year.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Watts Atelier Winter 2013 Schedule

Here is a copy of the new brochure for the Winter 2013 term which starts January 7th. Click on the image below to view a jpeg image of the brochure and schedule. Visit www.WattsAtelier.com for class descriptions and images.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Watts Atelier Online Survey

Many of you know I am hard at work on an online version of Watts Atelier. I would really appreciate your input as we work toward the launch in 2013. If you have a moment please take the following short survey. Thank you and Happy Holidays!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/36CLFN5

Monday, November 26, 2012

New iBook Release by Jeffrey R. Watts

Hope all is well with you all and you had a great Thanksgiving. Today’s blog post is to announce the release of a recent project that I am really excited about. I cherry picked some of my favorite Portrait Gestures from over the years and put them into an iBook format so you can zoom in and see all of the bravura brushwork and broken color. I have also included a 40 minute video of me doing a gesture portrait taken from my most recent DVD release titled “Gesture Portrait II: 9 Lighting Scenarios You Should Master.” I think you will find this iBook and video to complement each other beautifully. Happy painting and I wish you all the best this Holiday season. If you would like to purchase either of these items please click on the links below. (The iBook is available through Apple iTunes and the DVD is available through our website.)

Click the following link to purchase my new iBook:

The Art of Gesture Portraits by Jeffrey Watts
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-art-of-gesture-portraits/id576920673?mt=11

Click the following link to purchase my new DVD:

Gesture Portraits II: 9 Lighting Scenarios You Should Master by Jeffrey Watts
http://www.wattsatelier.com/Store/Store/cms.aspx

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Watts Podcast - Erik Gist Interview

Some of you may be wondering about the other instructors at Watts and are a bit curious about their backgrounds and how they came to instruct at Watts as well as some of the trials and tribulations of being a professional artist. I will be interviewing one of our instructors and posting it once a month so you can get some insight into these very special artists and great friends. Hope you enjoy.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Watts Atelier Fall 2012 Schedule

Here is a copy of the new brochure for the Fall 2012 term which starts October 8th. Click on the image below to download a pdf of the brochure and schedule. Visit www.WattsAtelier.com for class descriptions and images.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Composition & Staging for Visual Development

Highlighted Class

COMPOSITION AND STAGING FOR VISUAL DEVELOPMENT

This class was designed and is taught by my father Robert Watts. He designed the class to emphasize the brick and mortar concepts of picture making so often lacking or not really taught at all in today’s schools and institutions of art. Although tailored to students looking to go into visual development this class would be equally beneficial to the illustrator or fine artist. As a matter of fact I felt so strongly about the class and its material that I came in to take it. I try to sit in on at least one class a term on top of my teaching responsibilities and professional deadlines. I find it absolutely pivotal to continue ones training indefinitely. I have included some of the work I did for the assignments given in the class as well as some of my father’s demos. He would commonly spend a good portion of the class going over unique ways to approach perspective, invention and storytelling. The assignments ranged from designing the environment for a Dragon’s Lair, Pirates approaching a sunken Galleon to The Great Wall of China being built to Hunters being approached by a Yeti. They are great exercises for developing and cultivating your visual memorization ability which in my opinion is essential for successful picture making in any genre!

THE CLASS DESCRIPTION:

The class will present a process and workflow for the invention and depiction of key scenes, environments, and character whose purpose is: to give life and substance to a specific story line, while preserving the director or production designer’s vision.

Some of the handouts went over unique techniques for breaking down compositions using alphanumericals to organize the center of interest in a picture.

Here my father goes over thumbnails and how to simplify key shapes for effectiveness in conveying the essential elements. Simplification and readability are key.

Here Robert is using the Legend of Sleepy Hollow to convey drama in emotional content. The idea was to use the bridge and its design as an essential component.

Here he is showing designs for dragons to be a part of the Dragon’s Lair scenario.

Here are some of the thumbnails I came up with.

In this image I had to create the thumbnails for a group of pirates approaching a sunken Galleon. I then took one of the ideas and developed it further just for fun!

In these images my father is showing the students how to develop and cast proper shadows using shorthand, easily understood concepts-a monumental task for most artists.

My father showing a great technique for how to find the meandering Wall of China-a difficult problem indeed. It is fun to watch him work these scenarios out.

Here are some of my sketches for this assignment.

Here are some more examples from the class.

In Closing this class is one of several we teach at the Atelier that covers how to compose and put pictures together. They are much needed and in my opinion very hard to find. The artists that were taught in this manner are all but gone. It is a throw-back to the halcyon days of the past. These concepts must be understood in order to create any substantial illustration, concept or fine art painting that looks to stand the test of time. Hopefully we will see you in one of these classes in the future.

This class will be taught again during out Fall 2012 term starting October 9th.