Rebekah’s Studio

Painting is on my friends’ bucket lists. They’ve inspired me to teach some fundamentals and techniques and offer a course. As promised, I will open my Kaaawa studio for Oil Painting Lessons starting February 2012. Registration is open now and enrollment is limited.

The “Painting I” course consists of 12 weekly lessons on Wednesday from February 1 to April 25. Class sessions will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and include a lunch break. Tuition is $100 a month. Cost of materials is additional.

I just noticed it’s leap year, so you’ll either get a bonus or won’t have to feel bad if you miss one class.

Students will learn impressionistic painting in oil. Lessons will generally follow those taught by the late colorist Gloria Foss, my oil painting teacher, and as found in Foss’s guidebook How to Paint. I’ll add my own experience as a fine art painter and photographer to show you what to do.

I’ll teach you art fundamentals and the logic of light to give you a solid foundation to pursue painting as an avocation or a vocation.

What you’ll learn

Here’s just some of what you’ll learn in my Painting I:

Each lesson will consist of a brief lecture on art theory, a demonstration, hands-on still life drawing and painting in the studio, homework, and critique.

Each week we will build on the previous technique learned, and eventually we will apply what we have learned in the studio to the landscape.

Gloria Foss and me

I first met Gloria Foss at the Honolulu Branch of the National League of American Pen Women where she was an Arts member and I was a new Letters member. She was a UH Mānoa student getting her Master of Fine Arts degree. She wanted to teach. She said if all of her art teachers had explained some things from the very start, it would have been a lot easier. She was about 60. Teaching was on Gloria’s bucket list!

After I finished the black-and-white photography curricula at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (I didn’t complete color photography), I sought a studio class to keep my eyes trained. By then Gloria had designed her own “Gloria Foss Color Course” and opened the Foss School of Fine Arts in Honolulu.

Then I had the honor and delight of making the photographs of the studio lessons in her book How to Paint. It’s now my desire to share what I learned, then and since, with others.

Tuition, materials and supplies

Your investment will be the cost of tuition—$100 a month for each of three months for a total of $300—plus the cost of materials and supplies. When you register, you will receive a complete list of art materials to buy.

For the first two or three lessons, you will not need everything on the list. All items on the list will cost an estimate of $125-$150.

Easels will be provided for class use.

An optional text is How to Paint by Gloria Foss (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1991) that will be used for reference. It is out of print, but you can try to locate a used copy. Information on how to obtain a CD of the book will be given in class.

How to register

To reserve your place in class, send your correct name, mailing address with ZIP, phone number, and email address with a minimum $40 deposit to Rebekah Luke, P.O. Box 574, Kaaawa, HI 96730. Or, include the information in an email message to rebekahluke@hawaii.rr.com and send your deposit via PayPal with the DONATE button in the right sidebar. After your deposit is accepted I will send you a supplies list and information on where to go in Kaaawa for the first class. Happy painting!

Copyright 2012 Rebekah Luke