Sculpture Competition Finalists

The finalists have been chosen for the sculpture competition! They will compete June 8-12 to model a 32” figure from life with the model posing 8 hours each day for a total pose of 40 hours. The GCA will host an armature-building luncheon and Meet & Greet prior to the competition (date TBD). Finalists are warmly invited to stay after the pose Monday & Wednesday evenings as we open the competition room for public viewing and dialogue.

The participating sculptors will be:

Kate Brockman

Julia McGeehan

Chad Fisher

Joshua Koffman

Alex Heinke
Brian Kramer

Virgil Oertle

Jiwoong Cheh
Christen Waddell

Mason Sullivan

Angela Cunningham

Mark Porter

p.s. we are on the amazing Gurney Journey blog today, go check it out!

Happy Birthday Tony!

Special Workshop Week

This week we are all taking a break from our regular routine to participate in workshops that focus on value, color, and architectural drawing.


The value workshop is being taught by Tony Curunaj. Students in this workshop are being introduced to the Munsell color chart and learning to mix and match the neutral values. We just finished making value strips (shown above) and will tube up some of these grays to use for painting this week.


Carla, Andy, & Remi working on value strips


The color workshop is taught by Graydon Parrish. Students in this group are also working with the Munsell chips to learn about the flesh tone range. They are making some funky color charts that I'll post as they progress.


The architectural drawing group has been spending the mornings walking around Manhattan drawing from some local sites of interest, and in the afternoon they're doing this kind of thing in the class room. Richard Cameron is teaching this workshop.

Master Copies

Jacob Collins giving a class demo on quick master copies, which all students are encouraged to do as a way to learn composition, value, and color from successful works of art.


These exercises are meant to be loose and fun, they are definitely a nice way to break up the regular studio routine and get inspired by the masters. Here is a class Demo Jacob did of a Van Dyke painting.


Students who have not started working in color yet are doing copies just focused on value. Jacob did this demonstration of a Sargent portrait in class. The process of studying the painting closely enough to copy it allows for a chance to notice more subtle elements of the composition. Students are encouraged to do lots of these copies, maybe once a week or more, spending as much or as little time on it as they wish. The idea is that over years or a life time of this kind of study, the artist will gain a more intuitive understanding of composition, value, and color.

Recent drawings

Andy Leonard


Lauren Sansaricq


Colleen Barry


Ariel Zabloski


Brendan Johnston


Emilie Lee

James Gurney Lecture

Today we had a fascinating lecture by James Gurney, an artist known for his plen-air landscape paintings and his award-winning illustrations of fantasy and historical subjects. He is also known as the author and illustrator of the best-selling illustrated book series, Dinotopia. In his lecture and slide show he explained how he creates realistic paintings of imaginary subject matter. His working process involves a lot of research, plein-air studies, maquettes, models, architectural models, and other reference tools. It was very impressive and inspiring! Everyone should spend some time checking out his books, his website, and his blog, which he updates daily.

John Morra show in NYC

GCA instructor John Morra has a show coming up at Hirschl & Adler Galleries in New York City. Opening reception is Thursday, April 23 from 5:30 - 7:30 PM. The show runs from 4/23-5/22.

HIRSCHL & ADLER

21 East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
Tel 212 535 8810

Gallery Hours
Tuesday through Friday 9:30–5:15
Saturday 9:30-4:45
Closed Sunday and Monday
April 25, 2009 is our last open Saturday for the season.

Scott Waddell

Check out this new painting by Scott Waddell! Scott teaches in the core program at GCA and he also teaches a long pose portrait painting class on Thursday nights for part-time students.

David, by Scott Waddell, oil on canvas 2009

Leslie T. & Francis U. Posey Grant

Congratulations to Water Street / GCA student Will St. John for winning a grant from the Leslie T. & Francis U. Posey Foundation which makes scholarships to graduate level art students majoring in traditional figurative painting or sculpture. Below is Will's painting which won the grant. Nice job Will!


Santiago by Will St. John, oil on canvas

Studio talks: Graydon Parrish on Bouguereau

Graydon Parrish talks about
WILLIAM BOUGUEREAU'S APPROACH TO PICTURE MAKING
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
(Sorry but we have no more space left for guests to attend this lecture. Stay tuned for the next one and RSVP right away!)

Study of Head and Hands, William Bouguereau

William Bouguereau's Approach to Picture Making:
Bouguereau's art represents the culmination of 19th century French Academic painting. After about fourteen years of training and after winning the Prix de Rome in 1850, Bouguereau went on to create over 800 paintings. His methods represent a textbook example of how paintings were systematically and professionally made. In this lecture I will describe in detail his approach, which begins with simple croquis or thumbnail sketches and advances, in an almost linear fashion, from color sketch to detailed studies to the final painting. Futhermore, I will present unfinished examples and share ideas on Bouguereau's painting procedure, including how his surfaces are layered and how this contributes to his peerless flesh. Finally, we will study other sources, both the past and present, including the work of his peers, Paul Baudry and Alexandre Cabanel, period writings on painting technique, as well as the Munsell color model.

About Graydon Parrish:
Graydon Parrish was born in Pheonix, Arizona in 1970. At the age of 17, he began attending the New York Academy of Art. He also studied under Michael Aviano. He graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachussetts.

Graydon is also teaching a color theory workshop at GCA this summer, there is still some space left if you want to sign up!
July 13 - 31, 2009

student work from March classes

Amelia Landes


Brandon Beckstrom


Brandon Beckstrom


Arturo Garcia


Gregory Mortenson


Carol Broman


Arturo Garcia


Gregory Mortenson


Carol Broman

Angela Cunningham

Final day of March Sculpture class

These photos are from the final day of the month-long pose for morning sculpture class.


Sculptures by Angela Cunningham (near left) & Mark Porter (next one to the right)




Danny Grant working on his sculpture


Will St. John & Rebecca Gray


Mark Porter's sculpture from the back


Mark Porter's sculpture from the front


Rebecca Gray and Will St. John


Angela Cunningham's sculpture

New work from Edward Minoff

Edward Minoff has just posted a new page on his website that explains the step by step process he goes through to create one of his seascape paintings. Minoff has been painting and drawing the sea for years but he has never completed anything on the scale of his most recent painting Waves which is 40 x 96 inches. Of the ambitios project, he says "I set out to paint a monumental seascape in the vein of the great 19th century landscape painters who made the element of scale so prominent in their work. I wanted to paint a scene that would surround the beholder - to allow the viewer to become lost in this invented environment when standing in front of the canvas. My hope is that you will feel the warmth of the light, hear the crash of the waves, and smell the salty sea air as the painting fills your view."

Waves 40 x 96 inches, oil on linen, 2009 by Edward Minoff

The finished painting will be on view for Edward Minoff's solo show at the Cavalier Galleries in Greenwich Connecticut from May 14 - 28 2009.

Edward Minoff teaches figure drawing and painting in the core program and several nights a week at GCA. He is also teaches landscape painting at the Hudson River Fellowship, a GCA program.