End: June 30th 2012

Join us at the Emerald Tablet for a fresh summer blend of artists spinning alternate realities by Surrealist-inspired image magic and trickery. A playful mood and whimsical metaphysics weave seamlessly into unsettling tweaks on familiar landscapes, as the fabric of the everyday is teased apart for a series of peeks into dimensions beyond.

Watch Douglass-Truth paint in this wonderful 15 second video!

'Painting 5755' by Douglass Truth	'Afterlife Then Winter' by Menlo Macfarlane
Winston Smith : Insomniac	Painting by Aram Larsen
'Baron Von Munchausen' by Willem De Groot, installed in the City of Sacramento, CA public park

Our professional models are among the best to be found in the city and pose on a raised modeling platform under directed lighting to accentuate their physique. Our 700 square foot space is clean with plenty of easels, tables, drawing boards, paper and media available, as well as a broad selection of music and a mid-session break for refreshments.

This morning class, Wednesdays 9:30 to 12:30, is currently in session. Phone 415-500-2323 or use our contact form if you’re interested in dropping in, or sign up for 4 sessions at a reduced rate by using the form below.

New classes require a minimum of 6 participants to launch, with 4 session subscriptions paid in advance. Please contact us if you are an individual or group interested in other time slots. Long pose classes for portraits or paintings can also be scheduled on request. Instruction is available for those new to figure drawing, or hoping to learn more.

Cost: 4 sessions for $55
Wednesday Mornings, 9:30am – 12:30pm
Instruction available
REGISTER: go to http://EmTab-FigureDrawing.eventbrite.com/ or use the form below. Please select the date you plan to start attending from the drop-down menu. Your payment will entitle you to four consecutive sessions beginning from that date.

Often Della uses water to help facilitate the flow of paint or ink, causing delicate gradations which can then be accentuated by intense color in the form of pure pigment sticks. Some works can appear Asian influenced, but this is because the artist has approached the creation of each piece much like a Sumi-e ink painting. In this manner of painting, the artist brings herself into a meditative state, focusing her being on each new sheet of paper and with brush in hand, at the moment of awareness, makes the first stroke with a brush loaded with water. The next stroke is made with a brush loaded with black ink, which meets the water stroke in places, flowing softly into it and carrying the ink into fantastic forms and soft gradations of gray. Once this ink painting has dried, Della imagines into it, seeking out the forms she wishes to accentuate and reveal. The process can take a several hours or several months, depending on the complexity of the piece.

Don’t miss this unusual exhibition, on view through the month of May 2012.
Visit http://dellaheywood.com to see more images.

This in-depth introductory seminar taught by the founder of Sinopia Pigments, Alex Warren, will explore the many ways powdered pigments can be used create your own brilliant color formulations, and will include a complete demonstration of how to make your own paints.

Alex will discuss the different types of pigments: Earths, Minerals, Lakes and Synthetics and the properties of oil, acrylic, egg-tempera, casein, watercolor, encaustic and fresco as binders. Flow, transparency, stiffness, permanence, dispersion, saturation, color formulations and handling characteristics will all be discussed, as well as the financial advantages and deep satisfaction of making your own paints.

This introductory class is open to all skill levels and will include ample opportunity for questions and answers. Further instruction available for those who seek deeper acquaintance with making their own art materials from scratch.

Cost: $50
Saturday May 19th 2012
1pm – 4pm
Instructor: Alex Warren
REGISTER: go to Secrets_Of_Paint_Making-May_19_2012.eventbrite.com or use the form below. ATTENDANCE LIMITED TO 12 SEATS
INSTRUCTOR BIO: Alex Warren, founder of Sinopia Pigments, has been making his own paints for over 20 years and has become an expert in the field pigments through his experience of running Sinopia since 1995.

Make your very own exquisitely detailed fantasy character in this nine week course. You will design your own character of 6 – 10″ high and make scale drawings of it from 4 or 5 angles, and then proceed to make an exact scale wire armature upon which the figure will be formed out of oven-bakable Sculpey polymer clay.

You will learn how to add lively details that give your character personality and style, using sculpture tools to bring out textures, shape and movement. Each class will have in-depth discussions of  action, attitude, expression, costume and accessories and how to bring your unique character to life. You may choose to finish detailing your beautiful white hardened sculpture with paint, if desired, or leave it white, as seen in the illustrations. Your maquette will be hardened with heat once completed, and will last indefinitely.

This in-depth course will require you to complete some design work at home in order to keep up with the class, but you will learn a tremendous amount about character design and how to make an animation maquette.

Tools and materials including Sculpey clay, wire and other consumables will be available in economically priced kits to save you the trouble of assembling all the necessary components for this class.

Cost: $280 (plus a $45 materials fee)
Begins Saturday March 24th 2012
Meets 10am – 1pm each day
TO REGISTER: go to Manga_Figure_Sculpture_2012.eventbrite.com or use the form below.

Instructor Bio:

The Instructor for this course is Renee Yoch, MFA.

Renee began writing and drawing comics in 2006 and has refined her style over the past five years blending a version of Western cartooning with Eastern manga styles.

Renee has found great inspiration throughout her life from strong female characters in film and comic books. When asked about this, she replied..”Fashion.  Not today’s gimmicky Gaga inspired tripe, but designs rooted in trends from the late 1800′s.  I love the mentality of that era, when there was still undiscovered places and a high court mentality.  The contrast between the savage and the civilized and what actually is defined by those things is forever interesting and thought provoking.”

This theme is evident in her work. “Even though I work mainly from my imagination, my designs are inspired by a massive quantity of research into period costumes and patterns from around the 1880′s second bustle period and Victorian architecture. I find enough information until I feel comfortable designing and creating my own content and twisting historical costumes into my own aesthetic.” says Renee of her character costume designs.

In addition to her comics, Renee sculpts finely detailed maquettes of her main characters from Sculpey. Looking at each delicately carved fold, button and smirk on the maquettes gives one a huge appreciation for the amount of concentration and love that she brings to her work.

Renee holds a BFA in fine art and digital art from the University of Bowling Green University (Bowling Green, OH) and an MFA in illustration from Academy of Art University (San Francisco, CA).