Figure Painting: Building Form
Adult Course | Registration opens 11/4/2025 10:00 AM MDT
In this class, students learn how to create a convincing three dimensional reality of the human form in their paintings.
Together we investigate the shapes of the human body and the conceptual principles of how light falls across and interacts with those shapes to create the illusion of form. Using a limited palette, students can learn these foundational principles without juggling the added complexity of full color. This method can act as an under painting for later explorations of long pose, or can be used as a final painting procedure.
This course is a continuation of the intro to figure painting class, but it is not required to have taken that course to sign up for this one.
This class is part of a year long course in learning to paint the human figure. Every 6 weeks a new class begins covering a different facet of figure painting: starting with an introduction to materials and short poses in the Fall, and ending with long pose, highly finished paintings at the end of the academic year in May. This allows students to “hop on and off” throughout the year to tackle relevant concepts to their practice, or to dive deep and sign up for the year.
- Some experience with oils and working from life is encouraged.
Alexander Soukas
Alexander Soukas' serious training in the fine arts began upon attending the Walnut Hill School for the arts, one of five high schools in the United States dedicated to rigorous training in music, ballet, theatre, writing, and visual arts. Unsatisfied with his studies, and desiring to pursue a career as an artist, he began homeschooling as a way of earning his diploma while undertaking an apprenticeship with realist figure painter Jason Polins. Soukas studied traditional painting and drawing in Boston with Polins for 4 years, where he now visits as a guest instructor at Polins' atelier, The Boston School of Painting. Years later, Soukas studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in a coordinated program with the University of Pennsylvania for a year before leaving to seek a more rigorous classical training at Studio Incamminati. While there, he worked for and studied under Nelson Shanks as one of his last apprentices. https://www.alexandersoukas.com/