Barry John Raybould's Virtual Art Academy®

About the Program

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About the Virtual Art Academy® self-study program

The Virtual Art Academy® program is a series of 56 individual self-study painting and drawing courses. Unlike most painting courses on the internet, this course is for the serious amateur or professional painter who is looking for a depth of information and knowledge that the Painting Academies of the past used to teach – information that is now very difficult to find elsewhere.

In this painting course I have shared all of the knowledge I learned on the path to becoming a professional painter. The course covers the principles that apply to all types of painting media including: oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolor painting and pastel painting.

All the painting courses are in an easy-to-read pdf format (what is PDF?), that you download instantly from the web and print out on your own computer, so you can start learning immediately.

The courses are grouped into nine basic Course Building Blocks™. These are the nine sets of skills that every artist needs to master in order to produce beautiful paintings.

 

Why is this painting course different?

Each year there are many new painting courses becoming available on the internet from companies with large marketing budgets and impressive web sites. The vast majority of these painting courses are at a fairly shallow level and are aimed at the hobbyist market and not the serious painter. I have put together this painting course for those of you who have already tried those other courses, and who are now serious about improving your painting. I guarantee that If you follow this structured program and do all the assignments I set for you, you will see major improvements in your work. However, I offer no quick fixes, this improvement will not be without effort on your part.

My students tell me that after a lot of research they have found the Virtual Art Academy course to be the best course available on the internet for the serious painter. If you wish to meet up with these students, sign up for membership in the academy for a few months and meet those students personally on our private forum to ask their opinion. You will find it a small investment for the lifetime of enjoyment and satisfaction you will get from the wonderful world of painting.

There are three key differences between the Virtual Art Academy courses and other courses on the web:

  • The program is comprehensive. I have included in these courses everything I have learned on the road to becoming a professional artist. The result is that the material in the Full Course is equivalent to what you would get if you attended one of the best art schools for three years. Read these student emails about the comprehensiveness of the material in the painting course. You might also want to check out my resume (bio) on the About Me page. When I am choosing a painting instructor to learn from I look to see how many awards they have won for their work, and also how many juried exhibitions they have participated in. I pay particular attention to museum exhibitions because museums are generally more selective about the artists they invite to exhibit. It is always a good idea to look for a detailed resume from the author whenever you buy a painting course from the internet. Of course the most important thing too is that you like the work they do!
  • I use a writing technique called Information Mapping (see: what is an Information Map®). to make difficult concepts very easy to understand. I learned this method of writing when I used to run an international consulting company (in a previous career) that taught large corporations how to teach their employees more effectively. Read these emails from student about how easy the course material is to understand.
  • The course is highly structured. You can read more below about the organization of the painting course into Building Blocks and Course Units. I do not focus on shallow techniques in an attempt to give you quick results. This is because I truly believe that in the long run this approach to learning will not work and you will end up being frustrated with your progress. Instead my approach is to teach you all the fundamental principles of painting and build up your skills one-by-one using a series of painting assignments in a logical step-by-step process. This will help you build a solid foundation of painting skills. Only then will your painting improve. Read these emails from students about the structure of the painting course.

Of course you should not take my word for this. The best way to get a real idea of what these courses are about is to read the emails that students have sent me. These are emails happy students have sent me over the years and I have not edited them in any way. You can also look up the Virtual Art Academy on independent software review sites like these listed below. I have no control over what is written on these sites, so you are sure you are getting unbiased reviews. (P.S. If you are looking other courses on the internet, look for similar independent reviews).

What are the options?

You can select one or more individual course Building Blocks according to your interests and then join the membership program (optional, but useful to get access to the course updates and online campus). Click on a Building Block on the left to learn more about each Building Block. You can then add other Building Blocks over time as you work your way through the program until you have collected all nine. Alternatively, you can get one of the two course packages right away, one for beginners, the other for intermediate and advanced painters, and then slowly work through the material. (These two packages give you a considerable discount on the full program).

  • For beginners: we offer a Beginner Course. This option is a subset of the Full Course designed with the beginner in mind. It includes 25 pdf files (that you print out on your home printer) plus week one and week two of my Workshop Video Lectures (20 in total), so you get exactly the same material I teach in my live workshops. These video lectures cover the critical topic a beginner needs to master before anything else. If you decide you are more advanced than this later on, there is an Upgrade Package that will convert your Beginner Course to the Full Course. In this way you will not lose any of your investment in the courses. This option is good for the hobbyist who is getting frustrated by a lack of progress from their current instruction.
  • For intermediate and more advanced painters: this option is the Full Course of 56 courses on painting, each covering a specific area in depth. These courses are in pdf format. This is probably the most comprehensive base of knowledge on painting that I think you will find anywhere (read the emails I have received from students regarding this). This option is for serious painters who are dedicated to improving their painting skills to a higher level, and who are prepared to work hard to improve their skills.

Both packages include Full Membership for one year.

What are the Virtual Art Academy® course Building Blocks™

The concept behind the Virtual Art Academy® program is that you need to build up your skills in a number of different areas before you will be able to paint well. I have discovered that there are nine key areas in which you need to build your skills. I call these nine skill areas Building Blocks™. When you master each Building Block, you will be well on your way to creating a masterpiece! Each Building Block consists of about six individual Course Units, each focusing on a different set of skills that you need to learn. You can get individual Building Blocks according to your interests and work on them one-by-one, or get one of the two packages (Beginner or Full Program). The nine Building Blocks are:

  • plein air paintingProcess: These self-study courses give you detailed step-by-step process for how to create a painting. The first lesson in this series shows you how to paint in the alla prima or direct style, using oils, acrylics or watercolors. An alla prima painting is one that is created in one session. Organization is key to becoming a successful artists. Learn all about how to organize yourself and your equipment in these painting lessons. They cover everything you need to know to setup your studio and also how to work out doors or "en plein air" in comfort.

  • drawingDrawing: The old saying goes that you can only paint as well as you can draw. Here are some of the secrets the author discovered along the way that will greatly help your drawing. There is a self-study course to help demystify the complex topic of perspective and make it easier to understand, and one that will teach you how to draw those things that are very difficult, such as arches, wheels, and complicated street scenes.

  • formForm: An understanding of form is essential for giving your paintings a three-dimensional quality. If you do not have a solid understanding of the material in these painting lessons, your still lifes will not appear three-dimensional, and you will never be able to make figures or portraits look real.

  • observationObservation: Much of painting is not about how you put paint on the canvas but about how to see. These self-study lessons will teach you the critical skills of how to see color and values. With this knowledge your paintings will automatically become more realistic. You will also learn how to give your landscapes depth and mood using atmospheric perspective, as well as tips to make your trees, rocks, water, and skies, look much more realistic.

  • notanNotan: This is the structure of the dark and light shapes in your painting. A good notan structure is the hallmark of all great masterpieces, and mastering this has been a key factor in helping many of the author's paintings win competitions.

  • colorColor: Color is why many people love painting. This set of painting lessons will help you understand your pigments better, which palettes to use and when, and how to create beautiful color harmony in your painting.

  • compositionDesign & Composition: You can do a great copy of your subject, but without a strong composition, your paintings and drawings will have no impact. The principles of design and composition are covered in detail here. There are plenty of examples and illustrations to help you fully understand all of these important principles and make them easy to learn (there are 40 principles in total!). This is one of the most comprehensive set of self-study painting lessons on this important topic you will see anywhere.

  • brushworkBrushwork: The character and feeling of your brushwork goes a long way to increasing the pleasure and delight of the person viewing your work. How you apply the paint also determines how much carrying power and luminosity your painting will have. Whatever your media, brushwork (or mark making in the case of pastel painting), is what makes a painting a painting and not a photograph.

  • visual music & poetryVisual Music & Poetry (Concept): Creating a good representation of your subject is not art. Although necessary, a good representation is not enough. You need to communicate something to your viewer – some emotion or some idea, or your painting will be nothing more than an illustration. This is what is called the "Visual Poetry" of a painting. This is so critical to creating good artwork that it has a complete category of self-study painting lessons to itself.

About videos in the Virtual Art Academy

I have chosen to write the majority of the course as pdf files. The reason for this is twofold.

1. The first reason is the sheer volume of information in the course. There are well over fifty painting courses in this program, nearly a thousand pages, and hundreds of lessons. My students tell me this is the most comprehensive art instruction program or book you can buy (read their emails to me). It would literally take decades to convert the program to video form. I prefer instead to continue my research into how to produce a master painting and to share those new insights with you in my frequent updates, rather than spend time making superficial (but visually attractive) videos.

Having said that, I have made some videos of my workshop lectures to explain specific important beginner topics, and as time progresses I will share more of these with my Full Academy Members.

2. The second reason is that I have watched many art videos myself, and they all suffer from the same problem. You hear lots of useful snippets of information while you are watching the video, but the next day or week you forget it. I have found that I hardly ever can find the time to sit through two or three hours watching the same video all over again just to remind myself of these little snippets of information.

The Virtual Art Academy course is structured entirely differently. It is specifically designed to be a vast reference library on painting. After first going through the program you can use this reference library to very quickly, in a matter of minutes, find any information you want to refer back to. The single most important reason why it is far quicker to find information in the Virtual Art Academy course materials than in any other art book is because every single page is Information Mapped.

 

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