Classes run June 20 - 25, early bird discounts through June 7

Haverhill, MA -- (SBWire) -- 05/24/2013 --Up until a few years ago, the Art Bootcamp was making Haverhill Massachusetts into a popular destination for artists. They came from all over the US and Canada and as far away as Singapore and Tasmania to brush up their skills. With courses taught by highly skilled studio pros, the Art Bootcamp was famous for producing professionals able to earn their living in the field...and in a matter of days, not months.

Meeting popular demand for more advanced courses, Rob Howard has again gathered fellow studio artists together for three completely new courses. Each course drills down into a specific area of art technique and, does it in just two intense days (it's called a bootcamp for good reason).

Each two-day course is complete unto itself but, the course are also part of a series of three related courses. There's more taught here in six days than in a year of the average art school (did we mention it was intense). Students talk about the skills being "imbedded" and surfacing almost unconsciously.That's the Art Bootcamp method.

(1) TheTechnical Course is the kick-off course. It's Art Bootcamp's most popular course with two days of best studio practices dealing with every studio skill from stretching canvases, making and sizing with rabbitskin glue, how to grind and tube your own paints along with producing your own pastels and chalks. And that's just the first day. The myseries of paint mediums, how to make them and use them to the best way to fix pastels without those noxious sprays are just a few of the subjects covered on the second day.

There's too much being covered to stop to take notes so they've printed up a 90 page book chock full of proprietary formulas, recipes and techniques.

(2)Painting into the Soup is what the masters called this forgotten technique of Indirect Painting. The first day is spent learning to use some useful painting mediums formulated to make your strokes smooth and controlled. This session will have you painting a monchromatic gray painting (called a grisaille). Painting without color is surprisingly easy.

On Day Two, you learn what might be one of the best kept secrets in the art world...how to apply glazes as the masters did. This is nothing like what we have been taught about glazing in color. Applying color over the grisaille produces an unbelievably bright and vibrant painting -- and it's fast. No wonder the masters preferred this method.

(3) Dueling Portraits. The artists are having a ball with this course. But it's more than two professional artists squaring off. The lessons are designed to blow the cobwebs off of many of art's sacred cows and strip the mysteries from portrait painting (it's really not that hard).

With one artist painting directly from a live model, the other will work from photo reference. As they paint, there's an ongoing discussion of methods and techniques and which great masters used optical devices (Caravaggio, Vermeer and Ingres to name a few) and which artists used photographs (Degas loved working from them). This might change your notions. It definitely will demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of both methods (neither is perfect).

But you'll be doing more than watching. You'll learn how to mix a perfect palette of colors for foolproof portraits. Using professional lighting equipment, you will learn advanced lighting techniques to create drama and emotion in your paintings. You will then apply a new way of thinking to painting exciting and dramatic portraits.

You can get much more information (and see some great artwork) at the Art Bootcamp website http://artbootcamp.com These courses usually fill up quickly so you might want to move on this. Courses will be given in the studio at 90 Washington Street overlooking the river in downtown Haverhill. There is elevator access.

Course #1 : June 20 & 21

Course #2 : June 22 & 23

Course #3 : June 24 & 25

Sign up before June 7 for substantial Early Bird discounts. Pay with credit card and, if you prefer, you can spread the payments out over six month...without interest.

If you have questions, just email mentor@artbootcamp.com and we'll answer them.

About Rob Howard
Rob Howard's first serious art lessons were at age sixteen in Provincetown with legendary teacher, Hans Hofmann. He later attended The School of The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where he mastered classical painting techniques and drawing methods. With over forty years of experience in all aspects of art and having operated The Studio for Illustration, he now operates his own portrait studio. During that forty year period he illustrated eleven books for a number of A-list publishers.

The Sakura Company sponsored an exhibition of his work in five cities in Japan. His Japanese publisher is Yugakusha Ltd. His book illustrations are in the collection of The Boston Public Library and The Kerlan Collection. DC Heath, Lothrop Lee and Shepard, McGraw-Hill and Crowell-Collier have all published books of his illustrations. Over the years his illustrations toured numerous shows and museums.

Howard illustrated and designed hundreds of book covers for Little Brown, Houghton Mifflin, Allyn Bacon, Avon Books, Ballantine Books, Berkely Books and Dell.

He wrote and illustrated The Illustrators Bible, the top-selling definitive sourcebook of illustrator's techniques, published in the U.S and U.K by Watson-Guptill. He also wrote Gouache For Illustration for the same publisher. Gouache was the first book written on this subject in 30 years. Currently he is at work on two other art instruction books as well as a series of online courses and instructions.

Recent years have seen him shift his focus to a highly successful career in formal and corporate portraiture. His corporate client list includes Apollo Computer, Bank of Boston, BASF, Coca-Cola, Codex, Compugraphic, Converse, Daisy Mfg., Data General, Digital, Filene's, Fisher-Price, Gillette, Heublein, Honeywell Computer, John Hancock, Jordan Marsh, Lotus, Nynex, Ocean Spray, Papa Gino, Prime Computer, Reebok, Sony, St.Regis Paper and Wang.

Howard founded the Artist Forum on CompuServe. With over 60,000 subscribing artist/members, Artist Forum was the largest professional art resource in the world. Closing Artist Forum, he created the subscription-only website Cennini Forum at http://forums.studioproducts.com Cennini Forum is the definitive online source, dedicated to informing and aiding artists with unbiased and tested information about the professional levels of art.

Media Contact
Andrée Cordella
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