Students in Rey Bustos’s Ecorche class at LAAFA started week 3 by covering the wire and nails holding their ecorche upright with clay. This clay was the beginning of the ground our ecorches would come to stand on… after we took care of the small matter of sculpting the 3 bones of the lower leg and the 26 bones of the foot!  Fortunately, Rey’s design of the ecorche “fleshes out” the right foot, so in all we only had 33 bones to sculpt.  Now that class is over, and I’ve completed my homework, I can’t believe how much we learned and got done this week!  Rey kept his lecture brief so we would have time to get started on sculpting those 33 bones!

Rey advised that we start with the feet, and then work our way up to the tibia, fibula, and patella that make up the lower leg.  To create the bones of the skeletal foot, Rey advised that we use top-view printed anatomical guides and “draw” the bones into our clay. The method really worked!

Photo by Ryan Patterson

Soon we had our skeletal left feet completed.  Rey demonstrated how to create toes, toenails, and tendons for a lifelike look on the right foot.  As a final touch, he added red calluses and blue-green veins in watercolor paint.

Rey gave a final demonstration to show us how to “cook” the two small bones of the lower leg in hot water.  The fibula is a very thin bone that we will eventually wrap in “muscle” on our ecorches, so we used a wire for support.  The patella (kneecap), however, is not connected to the skeleton by any bony structure, so we used a wire to show the patella’s “floating” position.  Check out my ecorche’s little left fiblua and patella enjoying their hot bath- aren’t they cute? 😉

Ta-dah! Here is my ecorche’s newly completed lower skeleton! Check back next week to see what we learn in week 4!

Don’t take our word for it, listen to what Impressionist master-painter Camille Pissarro says about drawing:
“It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character. – Camille Pissarro.
This Spring, LAAFA offers students abundant opportunities to take Pissarro’s advice. Click on the LAAFA instructors name below to learn more about each teacher’s instructional approach.

DANNY GALIEOTE
RON VELASCO
REY BUSTOS
PAUL WEE

 Steven Assael, the New York artist hailed by The Art Newspaper as “the foremost figurative painter of his generation” is coming to LAAFA!

He will be leading a workshop, open to all levels, Thursday thru Sunday 3/29 to 4/1 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM daily.  See the supplies list and more details from LAAFA here.

Steven Assael was born in New York in 1957. He attended the Pratt Institute and presently teaches in New York. The focus of his work is the human figure, rendered in glowing relief by gentle beams of warm and cool light. 

Steven Assael’s work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at museums from Chattanooga to Seattle and at galleries throughout the United States.  Works have been chosen for curated group exhibitions at the Naples Museum of Art, FL; the Arkansas Art Center, the Evansville Museum, IN; and the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK; among many.  Paintings and drawings can be found in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design, Kansas City; The Columbus Museum, GA; and many other museum and distinguished private collections.

 1-Day Color Concepts Workshop with Nathan Fowkes on February 11th!

“The use of color is critically important for the working artist, well designed color can make your work powerfully compelling and will reach your audience at an emotional level that moves them. That will be our topic of study for this year’s Color Workshop on Saturday, February 11, 12-8pm. So whether you’re a landscape painter, figurative or entertainment artist, if you’re in the LA area I’d love to see you there.” – Nathan Fowkes

Here’s what we’ll cover:
The fundamentals of color theory for painters (traditional and digital).
The emotional impact of color and lighting to create mood and environment.
Principles for organizing the complexities of color into pleasing harmonies.
Strategies for solving color problems quickly and effectively.
Color exploration exercises.
Painting from a costumed model in a theatrical, colored light environment.

Tuition Cost: $175 – Register Here for Full Workshop.

Tuition Cost:  $100 – Register Here for Lecture and Demo.