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Painting & Drawing Program|||
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CLASSES are small, fun & supportive. Accelerated program for beginners & an individualized program for intermediate & advanced students covering any subject.
STYLES taught are based on student preference and include impressionism, realism and expressionism. |
 Jill M. Dodson, MFA Director & Instructor, has won awards and is nationally recognized. |
Mediums taught are Oils, Watercolors, Acrylics, Pastels, Charcoal, and Pencil Drawing. The styles offered are Realism and Impressionism for a variety of subjects, including: landscapes, still life, flowers, figure drawing, portraits, horses, animals and fantasy art. With input from the Director and Lead Instructor, Jill M. Dodson, MFA, students choose his or her own path to learn to use their favorite, medium(s), colors and subjects, while they gain confidence, freedom to have fun, and find and be there best creative self.
Because Ms. Dodson also has Masters level training and experience in the psychology of learning and the science of creativity, the instructor has the ability to successfully educate a wide variety of people and help them quickly reach new levels of skill, expression, creativity, confidence, enjoyment and spontaneity in their artwork. Ms. Dodson can also patiently analyze and breakdown the how’s and why’s of artistic problems and skills in simple understandable steps and includes unique education that considers the body mechanics of drawing and painting as well as the science of the artistic (right) side of the brain to further help speed progress.
Some of the skills and qualities that you, as a student, can hope to gain are:- A rapid improvement in your drawing skills, including capturing a likeness and proportions.
- Increased ease, motivation and confidence to create and express yourself.
- Ability to mix colors without worry, guesswork or getting muddy results.
- How to get a clean, professional look to your work.
- How to suggest details that look convincing, without making so many laborious strokes that leave your work looking stiff, overworked and amateurish.
- Begin using bolder, crisper and confidant strokes from easy suggestions derived from the teacher’s unique knowledge of body mechanics and psychology. (This customarily takes years to develop at other schools, if at all.)
- How to compose and create your artwork with a way that reduces frustration and time consuming mistakes while creating a successful eye-catching work of art.
- How to design your subjects to make a more appealing, interesting and artistic statement.
- How to take better quality, more inspiring reference photos and work from them so that your in-studio pieces are more life-like, accurate and natural looking.
- How to make your artworks “sing” and create a 3-D look by capturing beautiful and moving atmosphere, shading and lighting effects.
Beginner or Refresher courses have a unique and successfully structured, step by step format that covers the basics, but is not overly drawn out. Also, It is comfortably accelerated, but not at an overwhelmingly fast pace, so unlike the usual college art curriculum, this satisfies learners who are eager to move quickly into color, but unlike many private schools, does not set beginners up for failure by putting into the “deep end” of a painting class with out a proper, workable foundation that sets up the beginner for sure failure. Intermediate and Advanced students have a more individualized curriculum Students can, work on the subject that fits their level of skill and inspires them, in the medium that they are most comfortable using, while still learning quickly in the sociable, fun company of other students like themselves.
Student placement is decided on a student-by-student basis according to the student’s history and sometimes by viewing past or current artworks and/or taking a placement test. Older teens are placed quite effectively into adult classes. Preteens are placed with young teens or, on occasion with adults or artistic parents who are also beginning or relearning to draw and paint. Ultimately, The individual student’s ability level and learning needs are considered when determining their placement level and pace of the curriculum. This effective model is based on years of student feedback.
Jill M. Dodson, M.F.A., B.W.S. is a nationally recognized, award-winning artist who was born in 1955. She has a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from Sherwood University, London, England. Dodson has also studied at many other art schools, including The Maryland Institute, The Schuler School of Art, The American Academy of Equine Art, James Madison University, Towson State University and The En Plein Air School of Art, Paris, France (out door landscape painting).
Jill Dodson has been a professional artist since 1977 and is very versatile, working both realistically and impressionistically in a variety of subjects and mediums, including, landscape, people, horse and animal portraits, figures and still life in oils, watercolors and pastels. Her artwork and photography have been published nationally and internationally for hundreds of magazine and books. Ms. Dodson has served several times in national art show juries and as a judge for art show and photo competitions in Maryland. Further, she has belonged to numerous artists’ organizations in the past, including the American Academy of Equine Art and The Baltimore Museum of Art. Currently, she belongs to The Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association and is a Signature Member of The Baltimore Watercolor Society.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE: Jill Dodson has taught art since 1981 for the Baltimore County Community College, The American Academy of Equine Art, The Baltimore County Department of Adult Education, The McCormick-Holt Art Center, The Learning Experience and privately through her own studio/gallery. She has also done presentations in person for various organizations and appeared on television and radio programs regarding various topics about her artwork and career.
