Painting Class

PAINTING AND PHOTOGRAPHY IN FRANCE includes a course in drawing and painting, taught by SEYMOUR SIMMONS (see biography, below). The course is open to all participants, and is designed for all ages and levels of experience, from true beginners to advanced artists. For BEGINNERS or those with limited backgrounds, the course introduces basic issues such as sketching from observation, exploring drawing and painting media, and studying how compositions are organized. INTERMEDIATE level participants will learn ways to improve their observational skills through studies of proportion and perspective, while also expanding their technique, strengthening their understanding of composition, and developing their individual style. ADVANCED artists will be challenged to extend their range of abilities, while also focusing on matters of personal concern, whether these are representational, formal, expressive, or conceptual.

Participants typically work from observation, however, individual approaches naturally vary, ranging from realistic to abstract, impressionistic to expressionistic, sometimes even surrealist! Toward these ends, the course will develop students’ creativity, using traditional and contemporary methods, like keeping a sketchbook, following a ‘creative process,’ researching artists of the past and present, seeking individual sources of inspiration, exploring diverse compositional ideas, experimenting with media, and writing reflections and self-evaluations. These activities will be pursued primarily through the use of a SKETCHBOOK, which is also used to record the trip. Sketchbooks are discussed in more detail, below.

The course involves regular GROUP INSTRUCTION, combined with opportunities for PEER CRITIQUE and ONE-ON-ONE discussions with the instructor. Students may use their choice of drawing or painting media. However, instruction and demonstrations primarily involve pencil and charcoal for drawing and transparent watercolor techniques for painting.

Along with demonstrations and working on site, an important part of the course involves visiting ART MUSEUMS, like the LOUVRE and ORSAY, for group discussions and study. There, in front of the original works, we will discuss the artists’ style, the way they organized their compositions, the way they evoke a particular emotion or mode through tone and color, how they created a sense of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface, and the techniques they used with their chosen media. Whenever possible, we will also study artists’ drawings and sketchbooks, alongside their finished works, to discover their own creative processes. Terry Roueche’s photography lessons will also complement drawing and painting instruction as well as museum visits by addressing common interests like formatting, depth of field, use of values, etc. Participants will then apply these skills as we sketch and take photographs throughout Paris and go on to develop more finished work in the Jura.

In sum, the GOALS of the course are to:

  • Keep a SKETCHBOOK to develop ideas as well as to record experiences and reflections
  • Improve OBSERVATIONAL skills applied to landscape, still-life, and interiors, and possibly figure and portraiture depending on the interests of participants
  • Expand TECHNIQUES in drawing and painting media
  • Learn to apply COMPOSITIONAL principles and improve composition planning
  • Cultivate INDIVIDUAL styles and approaches
  • Develop CREATIVITY through problem-solving and following a creative process.

SKETCHBOOKING: Keeping a sketchbook is a major aspect of the trip for painters and non-painters, alike. Throughout history, artists, designers, and people in many other creative fields kept sketchbooks as “tools of the mind,” through which they developed ideas, recorded events, and reflected on their experiences. Sketchbooks therefore contain not just sketches, but photographs, written words, pieces of music, mathematical calculations, found objects, and whatever else seems of value. In this way, these books do more than just record the trip; they become a means to get more out of it, both by enhancing daily experience, and by drawing upon those experiences to generate new creative ideas for future development.

Following our friend and fellow Painting in France teacher, BARBARA STECHER, whose book, Sketchbooking, we use, participants can start their sketchbook before even leaving home to document their pre-trip preparation, as well as their thoughts and feelings about what is to come. Sketchbooking can then be continued at the airport while waiting for the flight, in the air, and throughout the remainder of the voyage — all the way to the return flight home. In between, we will use the sketchbook as a key part of the painting course.

While in PARIS, participants will use their sketchbooks and cameras to document visits to Notre Dame Cathedral, Montmartre, the Quartier Latin, etc. They will also use it when analyzing works of art in the Louvre and Orsay museums. Participants will then continue this practice during optional trips to Monet’s home and garden at GIVERNY or the Palace of Versailles, and as they visit other museums of their choice, eg., the Cluny Museum of medieval art, the Impressionist and 19th-century collections at the Orangerie and Rodin Museum, modern art at the Picasso Museum and the Beaubourg, as well as contemporary art galleries. In the JURA, we will use sketchbooking and photography during our excursions to St. Claude with its great medieval cathedral, when visiting the colorful city of Annecy with its canals and beautiful lake, as well as during the optional trip to Geneva.

However, the main use of sketchbooks in the Jura will be to do compositional sketches, studies, and media experiments to prepare for finished paintings. In these ways, participants will learn to use the sketchbook as a tool for enhancing their creative process, one that can be applied in any activity, personal or professional.

SEYMOUR SIMMONS Biography

Seymour Simmons III is an Associate Professor of Art and Art Education at Winthrop University. He and his wife, Martine, have taken painting groups to France for more than 25 years. Seymour has a B.F.A. in Printmaking from Colorado State University, as well as Master and Doctorate degrees in Education from Harvard, where his focus was on art education and the education of artists.

While at Harvard, he did research at Harvard Project Zero with Dr. Howard Gardner, developer of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Seymour is also the co-author of Drawing: The Creative Process, with Marc S. A. Winer (Simon and Schuster, 1977), and has written numerous articles.

As well as teaching undergraduate and graduate students at the university level, Seymour has taught adults at the Cambridge (MA) Center for Adult Education, the De Cordova Museum (Lincoln, MA), and the Radcliffe College Seminars program, as well as in France. He has also taught gifted and talented teenagers and younger children. His teaching and research interests include the philosophical aspects of drawing instruction, holistic arts education, and the creative process. He has worked as an illustrator and designer, as well as an exhibiting artist, with focuses on landscape, the figure, and portraiture.

For more information, including examples of work by Seymour and his students, visit his website: seymoursimmons.com