Saturday, September 19, 2009

ICA&CA course offerings

The Institute of Clasical Architecture & Classical America has some great course offerings this year, including continuing education classes; studio-based seminars; lectures; conferences; travel; and walking tours. Check out all the options HERE. Some specific courses that may be useful to painters and illustrators are:


Introduction to Linear Perspective, taught by Patrick Connors

One All-Day Session: Saturday, October 24; 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

This course is an introduction to linear perspective, which is the intellectual basis for representational thought and spatial illusionism. The principal perspective system studied is based on Leonardo’s model aswell as that of eighteenth-century Englishman, Brook Taylor, and of nineteenth-century American, Thomas Eakins. The phenomenon of camera-conditioned thought, which includes camera obscura and photography, and its relationship to linear perspective, will also be investigated. At the end of the course students will have completed approximately four sets of plates covering such drawing exercises as one- and two-point perspective.

Basic Proportion: Geometrical Proportioning in Practice & Application taught by Richard Sammons

One All-Day Session: Saturday, November 7; 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Proportion is the most crucial, yet most misunderstood aspect of architectural design. It exists today as the last bastion of objective logic in the realm of aesthetics. Indeed, without an understanding of proportion and the closely related problem of scale, no architectural endeavor can be successful in the aesthetic sense. This course will present practical methods of geometrically describing the elements of classical architecture and how they relate to an overall architectural composition, as well as provide techniques and practice for applying proportion to design with special emphasis on the orders.