Brushes (sable or bristle, filbert, any brand will be good)
size # 2 (2 brushes)
size #4 (2 brushes )
size #6 (2 brushes
size #8 (2 brushes )
size # 12 or 14 (1 brush)
Fan brush; small and a large (optional but very useful)

Paints – Gamblin paint, or any other professional brand.
Titanium white (large tube)
Yellow ochre
Cad. Yellow or similar
Indian yellow
Alizarin crimson or magenta
Cad red light
Venetian red or English red
Viridian green or similar
Burnt umber
Ivory black
Ultramarine blue
Cerulean blue

Gamsol

Damar varnish (liquid not a spray)

Aluminum Palette Cup

Palette (no paper please, bring a solid palette; glass or wood)

Vine charcoal

Canvas size: 16×20 or similar

Leon Okun was born on February 6, 1980 in a small town in Siberia, Russia. In 1993 Leon’s family immigrated to San Diego. His interest in figurative art developed while taking art classes at Mesa Community College, where he was given complete freedom of exploration. This freedom led him to a profound interest in figurative drawing and propelled Leon to pursue the kind of program that would satisfy his passion for fine art.

Leon’s educational art journey began at Watts Atelier (a small private art school with an emphasis on the traditional fine art), where he studied for two and a half years. There he met Ron Lemen, an art instructor at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art. To this day, Leon gives Ron Lemen credit for inspiring him to believe in himself and to set the highest possible standards for personal artwork.

In 2003, Leon returned to Russia to explore Russian art schools and museums. Painters like I. E. Repin, V. Serov, and V. Surikov captured his interest and helped him develop the best possible vision any artist can have: To become a serious painter.

It was then, in 2003, that Leon decided to apply to the Repin Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Repin Academy of Arts is a two hundred and fifty-seven year old historic institution. It has been the birthplace of the most famous Russian painters. It was clear to Leon that if he wanted for himself the best art education in the world, than it would have to be the Repin Academy of Arts.

After two years of intense preparation Leon got accepted to the Academy, where he studied for six years and received both a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Art and a Masters Degrees in Fine Arts.

In 2011, Leon returned to San Diego and immersed himself into teaching, sharing with his students the wonderful education he had received at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.

Successful in his own right as a Artist and as a Teacher, Leon now inspires his students to search our their dreams and to strive to achieve their own personal best.

Leon is a member of the California Art Club, the American Portrait Society, the American Impressionist society, and the Plein Air Painters of San Diego.

Leon has participated in and won numerous art competitions in San Diego and throughout Southern California. His style of painting is based on the traditional European classical art, and color pallet that so many Russian painters are famous for.

Most recently Leon had several successful exhibitions that drew a great deal of interest in the art community.

Renée has lived between the United States and Paris, France studying fine art and art history. She graduated from the American University of Paris with a BA in Art History, and has her MFA from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. She now resides in Los Angeles and is Faculty Co-Chair of Fine Art at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art.

Aesthetically, Renée’s work is influenced by her classical sensibilities and art history background that have developed throughout her travels and studies. Renée explores ubiquitous themes through the eyes of a millennial such as identity, feminism, death, equality and addiction, making her work not a quotidian narrative but rather a relevant and relatable story. As a visual communicator, Renée feels the need to express the American (and seemingly global) zeitgeist and expanding diaspora of the world. Grounded in realism and figurative narratives, her works are conceptual using symbolism and composition to illustrate her perspective. In June 2016 she was awarded a grant by The Ringholz Foundation and invited to the Bakehouse Art Complex Residency Program during Miami Art Basel. She was also a 2018 Stobart Foundation Grant recipient and 2020 Artist’s Fellowship Inc NYC Award winner. Her most recent project is a corporate installation of life-size murals for an international tech company.

Renée has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, including Paris, London, Switzerland, New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, among others. She was invited to join the Copley Society of Boston and the Salmagundi Club of NYC. Renée regularly participates in charitable art auctions for women’s health and education, she believes the power of art can save the world.