Fridays, September 13– November 22, 2024, 1:30 – 4:00pm
10-week Art Clinic with J. Jordan Bruns
Abstract Representation is designed for artists with traditional backgrounds to think abstractly in their work. This class pushes your understanding of composition design, color relationships, and eye movement and promotes using your artistic license. This is an ideal class for artists who want to take their work to a new level. Class Level: intermediate to advanced. Please note there is a $20 model fee paid in class. Minimum age 14. 10 sessions
This fall, the class will take a look at the Bay Area Figurative Movement and the artists who taught at the San Francisco Art Institute during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Well, not just the figure artwork. There was a lot of incredible landscape, still life and abstract paintings being produced in area by incredible artists that we all know and love including Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, David Park, Elmer Bischoff and others. Aside from lectures on the history of the Bay Area Movement, we’ll look at WHY their work is so influential event today.
Schedule of Classes:
Class 1) September 13 – Into to the Bay Area Figure Painters: David Park, Elmer Bischoff and Richard Diebenkorn
Exercise: Pick a Bay Area artwork, either a landscape, still life or a figure, and reimagine it for the DMV area. If you choose a landscape, how would you paint it in the style of Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series? Think about how layering and canvas size affect the process. If you use a still life as your guide, think about the thickness of the paint. Can you make a still life as thick and dense as a Thiebaud cake?
Class 2) September 20- Continue Working on your Bay Area Inspired Painting
Class 3) September 27 – Continue Working on your Bay Area Inspired Painting
October 4 – NO CLASS DATE
Class 4) October 11 – Lecture: Bay Area Abstraction (West Coast Abstract Expressionists) – Abstract Expressionism, Clifford Still and Hassel Smith
Exercise: Create an abstract painting with a strong focus on surface. All the Bay Area painters had surface in mind, and it was often the driving force in the painting. While not involved with the Bay Area Figure Artists directly (he was a diehard Abstract Expressionists) Clifford Still lived and work in the Bay Area and was a major painter in the area.
Class 5) October 18 – Art with Surface in Mind
Exercise: Regardless of the subject matter you want to work with, make surface the driving force. Think Thiebaud’s Cake or Still’s large color fields.
Class 6) October 25 – Work Day
Exercise: Surface painting continued
Class 7) November 1- Lecture: Thiebaud and Diebenkorn, The Bay Area Landscape
Exercise: Using photo references of people in the landscape, channel the Bay Area Figure Movement, in particular how the figures are cropped and turned into compositional elements. Layering paint will be key!
Class 8) November 8 – Continue painting from last week with figures and composition
Class 9) November 15– Figure Painting
Exercise: We’ll take inspiration from the lecture on Bay Area painters David Park and Richard Diebenkorn and see if we can steal some of their techniques and apply them to our two-week figure painting.
Class 10) November 22 – Figure Painting
Exercise: Finish Figure Painting inspired by the Bay Area Painters
Supply List
All mediums are welcome! Let me know if you want any recommendations for a specific medium
