the virtual art academy building blocks

7/22/2019 The VIrtual Art Academy Building Blocks

1/24Edition 2.0 www.VirtualArtAcademy.com 2013 Barry John Raybould

The Virtual Art Academy Reference Library

Overview

Barry John Raybould, MA (Cantab)2005-2013 Barry John Raybould. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified,these electronic materials are for your personal and non-commercial use, and youmay not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, reproduce, publish, license,create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information obtained from thesematerials without the written permission from the author.

The Virtual ArtAcademy Building Blocks



Overview 2

Table of ontentsAbout this Course Unit ...................................................................................................................3

Organization of the Virtual Art Academy Program .....................................................................4

Introduction to the Building Blocks................................................................................................ 6

Building Block: Brushwork .......................................................................................................... 11

Building Block: Color ...................................................................................................................11

Building Block: Composition .......................................................................................................12

Building Block: Concept .............................................................................................................. 12

Building Block: Drawing.............................................................................................................. 13

Building Block: Form ................................................................................................................... 13

Building Block: Notan ..................................................................................................................14

Building Block: Observation ........................................................................................................14

Building Block: Process & Materials & Equipment..................................................................... 15

History of the Virtual Art Academy ............................................................................................. 16

Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................19



Overview 3

ABOUTTHISCOURSEUNIT

In this course unit The Virtual Art Academy is a highly structured and comprehensive program.The concept behind the Virtual Art Academy program is that you need to build

up your skills in nine key areas in order to paint well. Many students are

frustrated with their progress, and it is usually because they are lacking skills in

one of these nine areas. We call these areas the Virtual Art Academy Building

Blocks. The full program will build your skills in every one of these nine

Building Blocks.

This course unit contains an overview of the nine Virtual Art Academy Building

Blocks. In this course unit you will find:

the structure of the four major components of the program: the Reference

Library, the Assignments Library, the Video Library, and the Online Campus.

the contents of the nine Building Blocks.

how the visual music and poetry model relates to the Virtual Art Academy

curriculum.

a brief history of the creation of the Virtual Art Academy.



Overview 4

ORGANIZATIONOFTHEVIRTUALARTACADEMY PROGRAM

THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF THE VIRTUAL ART ACADEMYPROGRAM

WORLDWIDECOMMUNITY

THE ONLINECAMPUS

The Virtual Art Academy

Reference Library

The Virtual Art Academy

Assignment LibraryThe Virtual Art Academy

Video Library


consists of the course units organized into nine

Building Blocks. This is the background reading

material you need to read before doing the

assignments.

The Virtual Art Academy Assignment Library is

where the real learning actually takes place. Each

assignment is designed to build a particular skill that

is a necessary part of your foundation for learning

how to paint.


The Virtual Art Academy Assignment Library

The Virtual Art Academy Video Library

supplements the Reference Library by providing

extra information and explanation. It is based around

the lectures that Barry John Raybould gives to his

students in his live workshops.

The Virtual Art Academy Online Campus is an

online forum where students from all over the world

get together in the virtual world to share their

assignments, providing both motivation and

feedback on the assignments themselves. Students

who take an active part in this part of the program

learn the fastest.

The Virtual Art Academy Video Library

The Virtual Art Academy Online Campus



Overview 5

ORGANIZATIONOFTHEVIRTUALARTACADEMY PROGRAM(CONTINUED)

THE NINE BUILDING BLOCKS

Notes:

Materials & Equipment is a part of the Process Building Block.

Visual Music & Poetry is an overview of all nine Building Blocks.


comprises the nine Building Blocks shown in the

above diagram. Each Building Block is a major

skill area that you need to master in order to paint

well:

Process: step-by-step procedures for how to cre-

ate a painting.

Drawing: how to draw accurate shapes to repre-

sent nature accurately.

Form: how to make things look solid and three-

dimensional.

Observation: how to learn to see values and col-

ors accurately the critical skill you need to

make things look real and capture the true feel-

ing of your subject or of a specific place.

Notan: how to create a beautiful foundation of

dark, light, and gray shapes as the basis of your

composition.

Building Blocks

Composition: the key ideas in how to develop

the abstract design of your painting and make

your work interesting to look at.

Color: how to develop beautiful color harmony

in your paintings.

Brushwork: how to add a deeper layer of interest

and vitality to your paintings and make them far

more interesting for viewers to look at.

Concept: how to give your paintings meaning

and touch the emotions of your viewers.

Building Blocks (continued)



Overview 6

INTRODUCTIONTOTHEBUILDINGBLOCKS

Brushwork This building block concerns how you apply the paint to your working surface.If you look closely at a painting with good brushwork you see a small abstract

painting that is nothing like the painting when you look at it from a distance.

This is the wonderful thing about good brushwork - one painting becomes

dozens or even hundreds, depending on where you look! This is the near music

of a painting.

Brushwork is another of those aspects of painting (such as accurate observation

of hue changes on forms) that distinguishes the great masters. Exciting

brushwork adds interest and vitality to your painting, and is what makes a

painting a painting and not a photograph.

Color Color is what creates excitement in a painting. This Building Block is concernedwith the design aspect of color how to use it effectively in the abstract design

of a painting to create the musicin your work.

This course starts by giving you a review of all the basic knowledge you need toknow about color, including its attributes of hue, value, and saturation, the key

color wheels including the Munsell system, and the basic color harmony

strategies for simple analogous and complementary schemes to more advanced

schemes such as the double split complementary scheme and the adulterated

primary scheme.

Building on this knowledge you will learn more advanced principles used by the

master colorists, such as the principle of mouse colors, color vibration and

optical mixing, and value compression using constant saturation scales.

I have heard many people say that color is personal and that you need to

discover your own feeling for color. There is some truth to this but I am not sosure I believe this entirely. One of my earliest influences was one of the most

famous landscape painters in England, John Constable. I like this quote of his:

Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws

of nature.



Overview 7

INTRODUCTIONTOTHEBUILDINGBLOCKS(CONTINUED)

Composition Composition is the key to successful painting. Without a strong composition,you can spend an enormous amount of time on crafting an accurate

representation of your subject, but you will never end up with a work of art.

It is the composition of a painting that makes it interesting to look at and keeps

the viewers attention. Composition is a major part of the music of a painting.Sometimes I find a painting in a museum that I can just sit and stare at for half

an hour and always find new things to look at and enjoy.

In fact, one of the criteria by which I judge the quality of a painting is how long

you can enjoy looking at it. A painting that you can enjoy looking at for a half an

hour to me has far more quality than a painting that you can only find interesting

for 30 seconds or so. Much of this quality is due to how you deal with focal

points and eye movement, two of the key units in this Building Block. Space

division plays a big part in eye movement, as does the use of line and contrast.

These topics are also covered in detail in this Building Block.

The second key element in the visual poetry and music modelis the music of apainting or its abstract design. Although your inspiration for a painting usually

(but not always) comes from nature, it is very rare that you find a perfect

composition in front of you. To make the painting interesting for your viewer

you need to design, or compose, the shapes and colors in front of you in order to

create an aesthetic arrangement that communicates the concept of your painting.

This Building Block describes the key principles of composition, including the

top level principle of unity and variety, one of the most important principles in

composition. You will also learn about the key ideas ofspace division, contrast,

focal areasand eye movementas well as how to use organizational structures to

give your paintings unity.

Composition is a convention founded upon wide principles. If it is notyet demonstrated why certain arrangements of form and color give

pleasure and other arrangements give pain, it is not a question for us, but

for the scientist. We know that it is so, and therefore, without going into

the origin of the pain or pleasure, we must accept the facts as we find

them.Sir Alfred East, R.A., P.R.B.A., R.E.

To say to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to theplayer, that he may sit on the piano. That Nature is always right, is an

assertion, artistically, as untrue, as it is one whose truth is universally

taken for granted. Nature is very rarely right, to the extent even, that it

might also be said that Nature is usually wrong: that is to say, the

condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony

worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all.James McNeill Whistler, Mr. Whistlers Ten OClock 1885.



Overview 8


Concept In this Building Block I talk about those things that turn a painting into a workof art, and that make the difference between an ordinary painting and a

masterpiece. I will introduce you to a whole new way of looking at paintings,

and explain why you are learning all the individual skills that are included in

each of the other Building Blocks.

When you learn to become aware of thepoetryin a painting you will begin to

see paintings in a new light. You will also start to understand why certain master

paintings in museums are considered a masterpiece. It is this element of poetry

in addition to the musicof a painting that distinguishes a master painter. When

you master the ideas in this course unit, your paintings will start to communicate

much more emotion and feeling, and come to life. They will become much more

meaningful.

Drawing There are many different techniques for learning drawing gesture, contour,envelopes, scribble line, mass, and so on. But with all these techniques to

choose from, where do you start to learn how to draw? How do you decidewhich technique to choose? In these drawing course units you will learn all the

individual techniques, and will I explain how to put it them together so you will

learn how to draw better.

Although I've taken numerous drawing classes in my career over the years, I did

not find out about some of the most valuable techniques until much later on. If I

had known about some of these techniques earlier, it would have saved me a

great deal of frustration! So I've included all these for you in these course units.

This course will teach you a basic drawing procedure that you can use to draw

accurate shapes. The emphasis in this course is in getting the proportions

correct, in contrast with some other drawing courses that focus initially onexpression. I believe that unless you draw the shapes fairly accurately in the first

place, no amount of expression will result in good work. On the other hand, if

you have a solid foundation of accurate shapes, then you can build expression

on top of this foundation and produce truly powerful work.

Form Knowing how to make things look three-dimensional is fundamental to makingyour painting look real. Course unit 1 includes an important technique called the

two-value statement which is used for capturing the basics of form in a few

minutes.

Course unit 2 expands on this to include more detailed knowledge about thedifferent planes of the light and shade.

Course unit 3 contains some valuable information which was almost lost to art

schools, on the hue changes that occur on a form when light hits it - the secret to

beautiful color work.



Overview 9


Materials &Equipment

Choosing the right equipment and materials is important to making your life

easy while painting. Painting is difficult enough without having to struggle with

your equipment. Therefore it is a good idea to spend some time to get yourself

organized with the right equipment. The effort will pay off in the long run. A lot

of the information in this building block is from my personal experience, and

tips that I have picked up from many experienced painters over the years.

Tip: buying materials and equipment

Where I am aware of a supplier for a particular item of equipment, or some

particular materials, I have put that information in the Glossary. You will see

that there is a glossary entry for an item, if you see the word italicizedin the

text. An italicized word means that there is a corresponding entry in the

Glossary.

Notan Why does a certain painting win first place in an art competition? The answerlies a lot in its notan structure. Of all the parts of a painting that enhance its

abstract design, the far music of a painting, the notan structure is the mostimportant.

I created this painting Sunset over Sand City

in the industrial district on the Monterey

Peninsula in California. This particular painting

took first place in a landscape painting

competition and won an award in the Carmel

Plein Air Art Festival in the same year. This

was about two years after I started to paint full

time. There was no magic to this I was just

lucky enough to have discovered someoneteaching a course in notan the year before, and I

applied the principles I had learned to create a

solid notan foundation for this painting.

A well organized arrangement of dark and light

shapes creates an impression of beauty,

regardless of either the colors used or of the subject matter. This is called

notan from the Japanese word that means dark light harmony. Just about

every successful master painting has a very strong notan structure. Notan is such

a powerful factor in the success of your painting that it is one of the first things

you should study.

The process may seem simple, but it takes a lot of practice to do well. In this

Building Block Ive put all of the tips and tricks Ive learned about this subject

over the years since I first learned about it, and I am continuing to learn more

each year. Most students have found that studying this Building Blocks pays off

very quickly in improving their paintings. That is as true for experienced

painters as it is for beginners.



Overview 10


Observation This Building Block is all about accurate observation. The realism in yourpainting comes from accurately depicting in paint what you see in front of you.

You do not need to learn how to paint trees, skies, rocks, water, and so on. You

need to learn to see trees, skies, rocks and water. Once you see it, painting is

easy. When a student says I cant seem to mix the right color, the problem is

rarely in the mixing but nearly always in an inability to see the color. Not only is

realism affected by your ability to observe color accurately, but so too is color

harmony. The color of sunlight together with the effects of atmospheric

perspective and reflected light often (but not always) produce a natural color

harmony. If you can observe this harmony accurately, then your painting will

have automatic color harmony. The color problems in our paintings are often

our left brain taking over and telling us what the color should be as opposed to

what we are actually seeing.

Process The Process Building Block covers the step-by-step mechanical procedures of

creating a painting. I have put these course units into a separate Building Blockbecause, whereas all the other Building Blocks are mostly independent of the

medium you are using, this Building Block is specific to oils, acrylics, or

watercolors.

Visual Music& Poetry

In this section of the course I talk about those things that turn a painting into a

work of art and that make the difference between an ordinary painting and a

masterpiece. I will introduce you to a whole new way of looking at paintings,

and explain why all of the nine Building Blocks that comprise this program are

important to the creation of a true work of art.

In a sense, this discussion is at the highest level of painting and can only be

appreciated when you have a feel for each of the nine Building Blocks. However

I think if you are an absolute beginner you need to understand these main ideas

right away so that you know how to evaluate paintings when you see them in

galleries or on the internet. As you progress through the program, this topic will

become clearer and clearer.



Overview 11

BUILDINGBLOCK: BRUSHWORK

The character and feeling of your brushwork goes

a long way to increasing the pleasure and delight

of the person viewing your work. How you apply

the paint also determines how much carryingpower and luminosity your painting will have.

Whatever your media, brushwork (or mark

making in the case of pastel painting), is what

makes a painting a painting and not a photograph.

BUILDINGBLOCK: COLOR

Color is why many people love painting. This

Building Block will help you understand your

pigments better, decide which palettes to use and

when, and create beautiful harmony in your

paintings.

Course Unit 1 - Techniques

variety thick & thin thin darks, thick lights impasto

large to small point, line, and mass glazes feathering

palette knife carving out contrast eye movement

Course Unit 2 - Descriptive Brushwork

directional brushstrokes texture movement

emotional mood perspective

Course Unit 3 - Focal Areas

focus & detail mop/rigger freehand vs. control hand

strokes

Course Unit 4 - Suggestion

suggestion selective rendering simulation of detail

pentimenti transparent pigments silhouette accurate

color spots

Course Unit 5 - Edges

hard and soft edges lost and found edges color

changes

Course Unit 6 - Optical Color Mixingoptical color mixing complementary, triadic, analogous

color mixing wet-in-wet adjacent brushstrokes

multicolored brushstrokes layered washes thick wet-

on-wet layering multi-layered wet over dry

Course Unit 1 - Key Concepts

color wheels complements triadic color wheel

munsell color wheel tints & shades secondary colors

vivid colors & biases

Course Unit 2 - Palettes

choosing a palette thirteen palettes from monochrome to

vivid full spectrum organizing your palette

Course Unit 3 - Grays

making grays low saturation fields complementary

contrast Godloves principle darks, lights, grays

middle value ranges

Course Unit 4 - Color Harmonies

balanced complementary analogous hybrid

Course Unit 5 - Poly-Isochromes &Spectrum Palettes

Birren color triangle mono-isochromes and chiaroscuro

poly-isochromes Ostwald/Munsell tone scales tonal

influence composing on the palette

Course Unit 6 - Advanced Color

luster iridescence luminosity color preferences

color threads color bridges nine-pile gradations

glowing whites keying whites camouflage



Overview 12

BUILDINGBLOCK: COMPOSITION

You can do a great copy of your subject, but

without a strong composition, your painting will

have no impact. All the key principles of

composition are covered in detail in this BuildingBlock. Principles are explained by using

examples of the authors own work to break down

how they are constructed, as well using example

of old master paintings. This is probably the most

comprehensive treatment of this important topic

you will see anywhere.

BUILDINGBLOCK: CONCEPT

Simply creating a good representation of a subject

is not the same thing as making art. Although

necessary, a good representation is not enough.

You need to communicate something to your

viewer some emotion or idea, or your painting

will be nothing more than an illustration. This is

what is called the Visual Poetry of a painting,

and is what distinguishes the great master painters.

Course Unit 1 - Unity & Variety

visual music principles of composition unity & variety

developing compositions harmony dominance

shape variety redesigning nature linear sketch

Course Unit 2 - Space Division

unequal space division informal subdivisions

inequality threes odd numbers negative space

boundary relationships tangent avoidance viewfinder cropping rabatment shape simplification baselines

foreground overlapping forms right angles

symmetry rhythm tie together

Course Unit 3 - Organizational structures

organizational structures

Course Unit 4 - Contrast

shape saturation value temperature line

brushwork texture size active & passive mix

Course Unit 5 - Focal Point

focal point secondary focal point directing lines

isolation one thirds

Course Unit 6 - Eye Movement

eye pathways repeating color spots guiding lights &

darks entering point density of space division

Course Unit 7 - Line

graceful line interrelationship transition

counterpoint

Course Unit 1 - Types of Concepts

emotional aesthetic descriptive narrative complex

message

Course Unit 2 - Creating a Concept

subordination relationship emphasis concept

simplification exaggeration choosing subject matter

developing a style creating a concept



Overview 13

BUILDINGBLOCK: DRAWING

The old saying goes that you can paint only as well

as you can draw. Here are some of the secrets the

author discovered along the way that will greatly

help your drawing. One of the course units willhelp to de-mystify the complex topic of perspective

and make it easier to understand, and another one

will teach you how to draw those things that are

very difficult, such as arches, wheels, and

complicated street scenes.

BUILDINGBLOCK: FORM

An understanding of form is essential for giving

your paintings a three-dimensional quality. If you

do not have a solid understanding of the material in

this Building Block, your still lifes will not appear

three-dimensional, and you will never be able to

make figures or portraits look real.

Course Unit 1 - Gesture

setting up your environment drawing hand position

quick sketch glancing scribble line gesture mass

gesture

Course Unit 2 - Accuracy

angular transfer triangulation envelope glass

drawing level & plumb lines comparative

measurement midpoint establishment

Course Unit 3 - Contour

right brain switching contour drawing straight line

approximation

Course Unit 4 - Putting It All Together

using the mass drawing approach step-by-step using the

linear drawing approach step-by-step

Course Unit 5 - Basic Perspective

horizon lines vanishing points perspective center

drawing ellipses drawing cylinders hemispheres &

umbrellas fixing a complex drawing

Course Unit 6 - Advanced Perspective

streets upright objects tiles dividing spaces centers

of circles & ellipses drawing cylinders accurately

drawing ellipses accurately

Course Unit 1 - Two-Value Statement

light & shade two-value statement selecting a

viewpoint geometric forms general to specific

simplifying complex forms

Course Unit 2 - Planes of the Light & Shade

how to paint the form shadow & cast shadow light

half tone center light reflected light highlight dark

accents and edge planes squaring off forms painting

trees as geometrical forms middle value shadows

Course Unit 3 - Hue Changes on the Form

cool light warm shadows warm light cool shadows

hue changes in the light saturation changes in the light

adding color to half tones color changes from colored

light sources modeling the form with color



Overview 14

BUILDINGBLOCK: NOTAN

This is the structure of the dark and light shapes in

your painting. A good notan structure is the

hallmark of all great masterpieces. In this Building

Block you will learn all the skills you need to buildthe value structure of a painting, in order to give

the design a solid foundation. This is the aspect of

painting that most beginners, and even more

experienced painters, do not understand well.

BUILDINGBLOCK: OBSERVATION

Much of painting is not about how you put paint on

the canvas but about how to see. This Building

Block will teach you the critical skills of how to

see color and values. With this knowledge your

paintings will automatically become more realistic.

You will also learn how to give your landscapes

depth and mood using atmospheric perspective, as

well as tips to make your trees, rocks, water, and

skies, look much more realistic.

Course Unit 1 - What Is Notan

two value notan three value notan four value notan

notan design planning your notan mass notan notan

sketch transfer notan pens notan pastels exploratory

scribbles

Course Unit 2 - Basic Notan Design

dominant values shape distinction linking lights

linking darks

Course Unit 3 - Advanced Notan Design

flattening values analyzing values four-value study

middle values counterchange alternating lights &

darks spotting keys high key paintings

Course Unit 4 - Contour Notan

mass versus contour notan interesting silhouette

creating a contour notan in ink

Course Unit 5 - Gradation and Edge Notans

gradation edge notan

Course Unit 6 - Notan Sketchbooksexamples of two-value, three-value, four-value and edge

notan sketches

Course Unit 1 - Values

value scale comparing values value finder black

mirror limited value study seven-value study

reference values black & white images posterizingimages exploratory scribbles

Course Unit 2 - Color

saturation hue & temperature Munsell notation

matching colors matching values color maps color

studies color dragging colored light sources block

studies

Course Unit 3 - Atmospheric Perspective

depth & atmospheric perspective diminishing size

baseline receding lines overlapping forms dark

accents changes in value changes in saturation

changes in hue

Course Unit 4 - Land & Sky

dome of the sky clouds fog moonlight reflected

light cast shadows

Course Unit 5 - Water

oceans & lakes reflections waves

Course Unit 6 - Itness

what is itness observing the itness of different objects

trees rocks buildings



Overview 15

BUILDINGBLOCK: PROCESS&

MATERIALS& EQUIPMENT

This Building Block gives you detailed step-by-

step process for how to create a painting. It will

show you how to paint in the alla prima or directstyle, using oils, acrylics or watercolors. An alla

prima painting is one that is created in one session.

In the Materials & Equipment part of this BuildingBlock, learn all about how to organize yourself and

your equipment. It includes information on paints,

pigments, easels, painting supports, and all the

other materials and equipment you need for

painting. Another section covers everything you

need to know about how to set up your studio and

also how to work outdoors or en plein air in

comfort. Organization is key to becoming a

successful artist.

Process:

Course Unit 1 - Alla Prima Painting

nine step alla prima process notan painting oil and

acrylic quick color sketch

Course Unit 2 - Watercolor Step-by-Step

eight step watercolor process watercolor quick color

sketchCourse Unit 3 - Working from Photographic Reference

Materials & Equipment:

Course Unit 1 - Paints and Pigments

properties and types of pigments choosing acrylic paints

choosing watercolor paints tube wringer

Course Unit 2 - Mediums and Varnishes

oil mediums solvents varnishes reworking paintings

oiling out retouch varnish

Course Unit 3 - Oil/Acrylic Painting Supports - Studio

types of painting supports stretching canvas gluingsupports to mounting boards preparing supports sizes

primers grounds cutting panels old painting suppor drying racks

Course Unit 4 - Oil/Acrylic Painting Supports - Plein A

lightweight painting supports loose canvas masking tap

drying paintings quickly drying boxes painting suppo

carriers stretched canvas carrier brackets

Course Unit 5 - Watercolor Painting Supports

watercolor paper preparing canvas and linen for

watercolor stretching paper

Course Unit 6 - Oil & Acrylic Brushestypes of brushes brushes for travelling brush holders

brush cleaners brush cleaning pots palette knives

Course Unit 7 - Watercolor Brushes

types of brushes brush holders and cleaning pots frisk

Course Unit 8 - Oil/Acrylic Easels & Palettes - Studio

oil and acrylic painting studio easels palettes water tra

organizer box

Course Unit 9 - Oil/Acrylic Easels & Palettes - Plein A

oil and acrylic plein air painting easels superlightweigh

systems palettes palette carriers storing wet paint

Course Unit 10 - Watercolor Easels & Palettes

watercolor easels palettes

Course Unit 11 - Organizing Your Studio

studio lights mirrors taboret trash can air cleaner

gloves hand cleaners cataloging paintings

photographing your work framing

Course Unit 12 - Organizing Plein Air Painting

packing list umbrellas stool mirrors clothing ma

stick medium cup trash can paper towels carriers



Overview 16

HISTORYOFTHEVIRTUALARTACADEMY

How the course wascreated

From the early days of my art career I have been fortunate enough to have

studied with some great artists. To capture this valuable information I have

always kept detailed notes. The more I learned, the more notes I accumulated,

until I had a very large and good body of knowledge. The only problem was that

it was becoming extremely difficult to refer back to them. The notes were

scattered about dozens of note books and sketchbooks. Finding them when I

needed them was becoming next to impossible.

In addition, over the years I have gathered a personal library of over one

hundred how to art books. Although many of them contained some valuable

nuggets of information, they were usually buried deep in long paragraphs of

text. This meant that it was almost impossible to go back and find these valuable

nuggets of information when I needed them.

Also I had found that some of the best information was in books written fifty to

a hundred years ago. In those days, there was not so much commercial pressure

for the quick fixes and simplistic step-by-steps you find in many contemporary

publications. Consequently, many of these old texts included much more detail

and discussion about the finer points of painting. Because of their age, many of

those books were out of print and extremely difficult to find. Because I usually

had to return these books to friends or libraries, I had to copy out the important

information by hand more notes to add to the dozens of notebooks I already

had!

For all these reasons I started trying to organize this knowledge in such a way

that I could easily refer back to it again when I had a particular painting

problem.

During the late 90s and early 00s I started to run workshops in California. My

students found that the way I analyzed paintings was novel to them and urged

me to write a book sowing the seeds for what was to become the Virtual Art

Academy Reference Library. I started to organize the knowledge I had

gathered, and a one-book project grew to ten books, then twenty and by 2003 I

finally had around thirty course units, each covering an important specific topic

in painting. Because the regular art book publishers have a rigid standard format

for their art instruction books of 175 pages with mostly illustrations and very

little in-depth discussion of painting I decided to self-publish, and the Virtual

Art Academy was born.

Edition 1 was published in 2003 and included around 30 course units. Within a

couple of years the course expanded to around 50 course units, and InternationalArtist Magazine endorsed the program and offered me a regular monthly

column. From 2006 to 2007, twenty short video lectures were added to the

course. The lectures were the basis of the methodology I taught my students

during my week-long workshops. A couple of years later, when I discovered

that almost half of my students were watercolor painters, I began to add more

specific information for that medium.



Overview 17

HISTORYOFTHEVIRTUALARTACADEMY(CONTINUED)

How the course wascreated (continued)

The course never remained static as I continued to learn more myself, and I

produced continual updates every month or so from 2007 onwards. These were

released to members of the new Online Campus, which was started around

2008/9.

By 2010, the course had grown so much that it was due for a re-organization. Inthe process of organizing Edition 2, I added many more new examples to further

explain the key principles of painting. To make these principles clearer, I used

extensive examples of paintings of old masters (including late 18th and 20th

century masters), as well as new examples of my own work, which had matured

considerably from the time I wrote the first edition.

In parallel with the reorganization of the reference library, I also created a new

sequenced program of instruction that beginner artists could use to gradually

built up their skills over a period of years by starting with the basic topics then

moving to more advanced topics. This became the new Virtual Art Academy

Apprentice Program. More experienced artists were able to select the areas of

each Building Block that they wanted to focus on and build their own custom

learning path by jumping ahead in the program to the third or fourth years.

The reorganization took three years, and Edition 2 was released in 2013.

Much valuable knowledge on painting that was taught up until about a century

ago has been nearly lost as a result of the 20th century modernism movement in

art. My hope is that with the Virtual Art Academy project, that knowledge will

now be saved and preserved for the future. Not only will this classical

knowledge be rescued from obscurity, but it will be integrated with the

innovations in painting discovered during the 20th century, to form a new body

of advanced knowledge on the art of painting for the 21st century.

Barry John Raybould



Overview 18

About the Virtual ArtAcademy teaching

materials format

A key feature of the Virtual Art Academy course materials is the way they have

been professionally mapped into a structured format to make your learning

easier. The format is compact, without an excess of words, and written in such a

way that does not allow for vagueness and ambiguity. This is done through the

use of clear definitions and numerous examples to make the concepts clearer. As

a result, the Virtual Art Academy materials are much easier to understand and

learn from than traditionally structured books. This is particularly importantwhen the underlying ideas and principles are complex, as they are in painting.

The reason I have been able to do this is because in a previous career I was

fortunate enough to have acquired extensive training in a proprietary, structured

writing methodology called Information Mapping a methodology that is, in

fact, used by hundreds of major US and international businesses to help their

employees learn more quickly. (Information Mapping is a trademark of

Information Mapping Inc.). In this earlier career, I was a frequent speaker at

many international conferences on how to use computer technology to help

people learn faster and more effectively. In the early 90s I was the founder and

president of a consulting company called Ariel PSS Corporation (later tobecome Ariel Performance Centered Systems, Inc.), which was a leader in a

new field called Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS), a revolution

from traditional Computer Based Training (CBT). All the advanced methods of

teaching that I learned through this experience were incorporated in the Virtual

Art Academy materials. This makes them unique.



Overview 19

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Brushwork I would like to acknowledge the following artists as sources of knowledge forparts of the Brushwork Building Block:

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), whose oil and watercolor works I have stud-

ied first-hand in the National Museum of Art in Washington and in the Sargent

in Venice exhibition in Venice in 2007.

Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923), whose works I have studied first-hand at his stu-

dio museum and a major exhibition of his work in Madrid in 2009.

the Chinese landscape painting old masters, whose brushwork techniques I

have studied in museums in China.

the contemporary masters, Ovanes Berberian, David Leffel, and Daniel Sprick,

all of whom are experts in different approaches to brushwork in oils.

Martin R. Ahearn (1918-2009), my watercolor painter teacher.

Emile A. Gruppe (1896-1978), author of the now out of print classic book,

Brushwork for the Oil Painter.

Ken Auster, for showing me the mop and rigger technique.

Jean Dobie, who wrote an excellent book on watercolor techniques.

The California Impressionists, whose work I studied first hand in the 90s and

00s in California in the Monterey Museum of Art, the Irvine Museum, the

Oakland Museum as well as in galleries in Carmel, California where I used to

live.

The Russian Impressionists, whose works I have studied first-hand in various

locations.

Various drawing teachers, who taught me the free-hand and control-hand tech-

niques through direct observation of master painters at work.

and finally, Jove Wang, a contemporary master, who was my greatest influence

in showing me the importance of brushwork.



Overview 20

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS(CONTINUED)

Color I would like to acknowledge the following artists upon whose knowledge I havedrawn in order to put together the Color Building Block:

Faber Birren, for some hints that helped me develop my ideas on the more

advanced aspects of color harmony. The original reference source for the dis-

cussion of mono-isochromes and the equation approach for creating thesescales (included for interest only) was based on a (somewhat difficult-to-fol-

low) text by Faber Birren (1961). The discussion about poly-isochromes how-

ever, (and the term itself), was based on my own observations and research into

color. Birren also had suggestions for how to create the effects of luster, irides-

cence, and luminosity,

Jeanne Dobie, who introduced me to the power of mouse colors as well as the

idea of color threads, complementary half tones, and techniques for how to

reduce emphasis on parts of the painting.

Ovanes Berberian, for showing me the possibilities for creating beautiful grays

and explaining to me the importance of preparing your palette correctly.

Daniel Sprick, who showed me the technique of Nine-Pile Gradations.

The palettes described in course unit two of this Building Block have come from

many sources, in particular I would like to give credit to:

Kevin Macpherson palette numbers two, three

Ken Auster palette number one

Ovanes Berberian palettes number zero and thirteen

Dan McCaw palette number six

Ron Grauer, Lois Johnson palette number seven

Composition I would like to acknowledge the following artists as sources of knowledge forparts of this Building Block:

Composing Your Paintings by Bernard Dunstan. St. Vladimirs Seminary

Press, 1979.

The Art of Color and Design, Second Edition, Maitland Graves, 1951

Joaqun Sorolla y Bastida (1863 1923), the Spanish painter from whom I

learned much by studying his paintings.

Composition of Outdoor Painting by Edgar Payne. Derus Fine Arts.

Henry R. Poore. The original source of organizational structures that was later

further developed by Edgar Payne.

Drawing Scenery: Seascapes and Landscapes by Jack Hamm. Perigee Trade.



Overview 21


Concept I would like to acknowledge the following artists as sources of knowledge forparts of this Building Block:

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475 1564). It was seeing his

Pieta in Rome and his statue of David and the Sistine Chapel in Florence when

I was seventeen years old that moved me to become a professional artist. All ofthese works had an enormous emotional impact on me, because of their sheer

beauty and emotional power.

Charles Movalli (1945- ), who had a very humorous way of making his stu-

dents focus their paintings on one subject.

Drawing I would like to acknowledge the following artists upon whose knowledge I havedrawn in order to put together this Building Block (there are many sources):

Rex Vicat Cole

Nicolaides

Betty Edwards

Phil Metzger

Joseph D'Amelio

Glenn Vilppu

Bridgman

Peck

Jove Wang

Stephen Perkins

Cedric Egeli



Overview 22


Form I would like to acknowledge the following artists upon whose knowledge I havedrawn in order to put together this Building Block:

Craig Nelson, a fine artist and illustrator, for introducing me to the term: two-

value statement.

Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585), who used the two-value approach in his studies

for his large paintings.

David Leffel, who has studied Rembrandts working methods and art in great

detail, and who taught me much of the detailed information on the planes of

the light and shade.

Frank Reilly. Much of my investigation into the theories in course unit three

were based on work by Frank Reilly (1907-1967), who was one of the most

respected teachers in the first half of the 20th century, and who taught one of

my teachers.

A. Dorian, who documented much of Frank J. Reillys teaching program of the1930s and from whom I learned the scientific approach to observing color

changes across a form.

Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923), and many of the Russian Impressionists, whose

paintings I studied to identify hue changes on forms

Sergei Bongart (1918-1985)

Henry Hensche (1899-1992)

Notan I would like to acknowledge the following artists, upon whose knowledge I havedrawn in order to put together this Building Block:

Arthur Wesley Dow (1857 - 1922)

The idea of an edge notan is one I came up with many years ago after studying

the paintings ofJMW Turner.

I first picked up the idea of a quick color sketch in which the drawing was not

important, many years ago on a workshop with the artist Kevin Macpherson.

He did not use the term color map, but it was basically the same idea.



Overview 23


Observation Color unitFor the content of the color course unit in this Building Block, I would like to

acknowledge:

Several of the diagrams on value progression in atmospheric perspectivewere

based on the work of the early to mid-20th century teacher Frank J. Reilly, whotaught many of the top US illustrators of the 20th century.

Henry Hensche (1899-1992), who in turn learned from Charles Hawthorne

(1872-1930), and

Sergei Bongart (1918-1985), whose knowledge was passed down to me by

Ovanes Berberian.

The use of block studies was the color teaching approach used by Henry

Hensche. Studying color using still life setups outdoors was the approach used by

Sergei Bongart.

There were basically two schools that were teaching this color skill in the UnitedStates in the mid 20th century. Both of these schools were very successful. One

school was run in Massachusetts, on the East Coast, by Henry Hensche (1899-

1992), and the other in Los Angeles by Sergei Bongart (1918-1985). Both of

these teachers were responsible for teaching many of today's better contemporary

artists and painting instructors, and each has their own group of enthusiasts for

their particular teaching methods.

I have experienced both methods because one of my teachers, Ovanes Berberian

was a scholarship student with Sergei Bongart, and another of my teachers was

Cedric Egeli, one of the top portrait painters in the US, and he studied with Henry

Hensche.

Of the two artists, I prefer Bongarts work because of his use of bravura

brushwork. In my opinion, Hensches work is sometimes a little overworked

since he used a lot of palette knife work. Sometimes he laid down color spots

directly. At other times he seems to have painted wet-over-dry to obtain an

optical color mixingeffect (or maybe just to gradually work up to the correct

color?). Hence Hensches paintings have relatively little near music compared to

Bongarts work. Be aware though that I think both Bongarts colors and

Hensches colors can sometimes appear too saturated and a little garish.

Just as it has been for centuries in the art world, the best knowledge passes from

generation to generation through a relatively small number of artists. I have

combined the most useful approaches from both teachers in this course unit toshow you how to learn this skill.

Itness unit

Much of the information on trees was derived from the work of Rex Vicat Cole

in The Artistic Anatomy of Trees, Their Structure and Treatment in Painting,

published in 1916.

The concept of itness was first described to me by artist and friendRodney

Winfield.


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Overview 24


Process I would like to acknowledge the following artists upon whose knowledge I havedrawn in order to put together this Building Block:

My principle teachers for oil painting: David Leffel, Ovanes Berberien and

Jove Wang.

Frank, who taught me acrylic painting in the style of John Constable in my

twenties.

Various other professional artists and friends with whom I have taken work-

shops and from whom I have learned important techniques such as Daniel

Sprick, Kevin Macpherson, Gregory Kondos and Ken Auster.

My teachers Martin Ahearn and Jean Dobie for watercolor.

the virtual art academy building blocks

Documents