Bright Light Fine Art has made this library of Videos On Demand available for individual purchase. Videos On Demand are not part of The Artists Guild Membership, and are only accessible to those who purchase them. Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members of The Artists Guild, please go to The Artists Guild Videos to gain instant access to nearly 70 videos featuring the highly sought-after instruction of David A Leffel, Sherrie McGraw, and Jacqueline Kamin.
Members of The Artists Guild can alternatively access their videos here: Silver Membership, Gold Membership, and Platinum Membership.
Lectures
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Rembrandt and the History of Paint Application
From: $29.95This Power Point lecture is not a dry art history lesson; it is a window into a revolutionary way of understanding the problem of painting. Through an examination of paint application, David shares his insights about how painting developed and why. His observations have the potential to revolutionize your comprehension of painting and thereby transform your work.
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Shape and Form Tutorial—How The Language of Painting Developed
From: $29.95In her warm and engaging way of teaching, Sherrie shows how the languages of painting and drawing developed. These two very different languages satisfy two very different needs. She explains that painting was designed to read from the back of a church or across a palace room, and therefore keeping strong simple shapes was the most important requirement.
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Abstract Realism
From: $29.95Sherrie and David collaborate on a talk about the movement that defines the very essence of their painting philosophy. They discuss good and bad examples of this movement throughout the history of Art to explain the difference between Abstract Realism and what most realism relies on—copying.
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Priming a Raw Linen Canvas
From: $29.95If you’ve ever wondered how to properly stretch and prime a raw linen canvas in preparation for oil painting, Sherrie shows the process from beginning to end, covering every phase you’ll need to know. By following her directions closely, you’ll be able to create one of the most beautiful painting surfaces available anywhere. No commercial canvas rivals the smooth, silky quality of hand-primed linen.
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The Art of Learning Part 1
From: $29.95In this refreshingly spontaneous film, Sherrie and David discuss the importance of “learning” to learn by sharing their own experiences as art students as they sorted through technique and style to become artists. This film is the beginning of a series that will address this important aspect of artistic development.
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The Art of Learning Part 2
From: $29.95In this refreshingly spontaneous film, Sherrie and David discuss the importance of “learning” to learn by sharing their own experiences as art students as they sorted through technique and style to become artists. This film is the beginning of a series that will address this important aspect of artistic development.
Still Life
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The Psychology of a Still Life
From: $29.95In this classic still life, David exemplifies the importance of moving slowly, assessing every brushstroke as it occurs. David paints the abstract shapes that comprise solid painting, as he delves into the psychology involved in sustaining one’s own painting to completion.
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Setting Up a Still Life in Atlanta
$29.00 – $75.00One of the most baffling of skills for most art students is learning to set up a still life. As Sherrie has earned the nickname, The Setup Queen, this video is an invaluable look into the aesthetic wisdom of this seasoned master. We follow Sherrie as she explores different ideas for a setup in preparation for her demonstration.
Figure, Portrait and Anatomy
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Sherrie Paints a Model in a Flamenco Dress
Sherrie masterfully captures a complex Flamenco dress design that would be daunting to paint in the studio on a larger canvas, much less trying to capture it on a small panel in front of a class in Bend, Oregon. Excited by the challenge of the beauty of her model in this ornate dress, she relates the difficulties and the benefits of working from life—which is always her preference—while answering questions from the students.
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Reclining Figure Part 2
From: $29.95In this second session, you will see oil paint mimic the lighted skin of a fleshy, human figure. This demonstration is an impressively rich and lighted painting that contains more subtlety than you are likely to see in any other film of an artist painting a figure in oil.
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Eye Tutorial
From: $29.95Painting the eye is one of the most telling areas of a portrait that separates the amateur from the professional. David guides us through the complexities of painting the human eye at his home studio in Taos. He explains how light articulates from the surrounding forms into the eye to create hard and soft edges. This video is a must-see for anyone interested in painting the human face.
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Practical Anatomy
From: $29.95This film addresses the basics of anatomy in a simple and accessible style using a skeleton, live models, drawings, onscreen labels and spoken explanations to help the information penetrate. If you have never had anatomy or even if you have already studied it in its more complicated forms, you will benefit from Jacqueline’s simplifications of the skeleton’s bony masses and the nomenclature of the musculature.
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Gesture Drawings at the Scottsdale Artists School
From: $29.95For her class in Arizona, Sherrie starts with an explanation for one of the most common gestures in the human figure—a bend. Working from a live male model first, she explains the basis of all gestures. She addresses all the elements that an artist translates into shorthand descriptions of what is happening, which is the basis of the language of drawing. She stresses the importance of giving the feeling of life in your drawing. Otherwise, your drawings will seem static. Gesture is the essence of what is happening in the pose.
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Gesture Drawing: The Essence of a Pose
From: $29.95Using existing drawings at different stages of completion, Sherrie draws the gesture that is underlying each. By breaking down a few examples to their basic qualities, Sherrie shows the minimum that one needs to draw in order to capture the feeling of a pose. In this unique video she demonstrates why artists have always sought to reduce nature into its most important information. She discusses why the nude is classically used to understand drawing and how it can teach you draw. You’ll see her tackle foreshortening, demystifying it by explaining what an artist must do to make the illusion convincing. She then talks about the use of toned paper as a way to give a feeling of light in your drawing.
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Figure Drawing: The Elemental Language Part 1
From: $29.95In this first part, Sherrie does gesture drawings from the live model. Gestures are what artists have done for centuries to understand what information is essential and what is temporal or incidental. These gestures get her warmed up for a three hour drawing that comes in Part 2.
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Figure Drawing: The Elemental Language Part 2
From: $29.95Sherrie shares her philosophy about the basis of drawing as the desire to study the subject. She says that drawing in its historical use was always a way to compose and examine the subject in preparation for a painting. She encourages every artist to begin with a bold and fearless gesture and leave timidity behind. Everyone has their unique line quality, but you can only discover it if you draw with abandon.
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David Shares the Art of Doodling
From: $29.95Doodling—inventing objects from one’s imagination—can be drawing at its most joyful. Doodles capture the essence of drawing in a playful way, and to date, this video is the only doodling demonstration that David has ever done. Sherrie assists David onstage as he has laryngitis and struggles to speak.
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Sherrie Paints & Composes the Nude
From: $29.95Sherrie addresses the importance of size and placement of the subject. First an artist must realize what the visual idea is, and then this concept guides every decision from that moment forward. The idea determines the size canvas you choose as well as the composition to express that idea. From an abstract beginning, Sherrie magically simplifies the nude onto a small board. You won’t be able to wait to break out paints and brushes to try to paint flesh for yourself!
