Learn Drawing and Painting in the Academic Method
Build your skills progressively working through the proven system of the French Academic Method adapted to part time study. The courses take an individualized approach to fit to your creative goals. Full recommended program can take take a few years, depending on student’s pace and level of commitment.
Develop your eye and your pictorial literacy
Learn to accurately depict nature using a variety of tools for seeing the information accurately. Gain the ability to realistically express various types of visual information which can be applied in any medium or style that you might want to settle on in your own expression.
Photograph courtesy of Alan Cradick
Learn about the tools and materials
From pencil and charcoal to brushes and palette knives. Learn the tools of the trade and use them to your advantage. Not all paper, canvas and paints were created equal. Learn the properties and differences to control your materials and produce desired results.
Develop your aesthetics
Use our many years of art history study and art practice accumulated by the instructors. Why do some things look beautiful and others don’t? Are there some objective ways to gauge good art and how do we establish an understanding of what we like?
Foundations Programme Structure
Introduction: Bargue Copy
This course offers an introduction to building solid drawing skills through copying master drawings. The copies that the students will work from are a series of exercises developed by Charles Bargue in 19th century France. We are not making “art” yet, but developing the hand, sense of subtlety and establishing the basics of vocabulary. Concepts like proportion, outline, shadow line, large shapes, simplification, shadow shape and half-tone will be explored and serve as the basics on which all further drawing and painting will rest. The goal of this course it to start building a verbal and visual vocabulary necessary for creating realistic drawings. The approach provides a clear process for how to draw anything, person, still life or a landscape, no matter the complexity of the subject.
Once or twice a week, 3 hours per session. $500 for 8 sessions, continued until the excersise set is complete.
Intermediate: Cast Drawing and Painting
This class focuses on the foundation of good draftsmanship that is fundamental in representing any subject matter you wish to draw or paint. The training for the eye as well as drawing vocabulary started in the Introductory course will continue through the more complex exercises in drawing from casts. Setting up the cast in relation to the light source, designing shapes and applying concepts such as values and edges will step up the challenge and prepare the student to more efficiently gather information from nature. Design and understanding of form are essential learning outcomes from this course.
Once or twice a week, 3 hours per session. $500 for 8 sessions, continued until the excersise set is complete.
Advanced: Portrait Painting
This class is the culmination of the student’s study at the Atelier once the student has completed several of the previous classes, including Bargue Drawing, Cast and Still life painting. With the understangind of shapes, form and values developed in the previous stages, student now tackles a new set of challenges as we need to track movement and reconcile 3-dimensional information despite the shifts and moves of the model. Student will learn to mix flesh tones. The class will also review the anatomy of the skull and allow students to explore set up, emotion and compositional elements as well as the feeling of space around.
Once or twice a week, 3 hours per session. $500 for 8 sessions, continued until the excersise set is complete.
Academic Figure Drawing
This course is dedicated to the live study of the human figure. Preferably taken in conjunction or upon completion of the Bargue course, in Academic Figure Drawing class we will apply the sight size method to the study of the live model. Various poses will be explored offering students shorter and longer set ups to hone in their abiliby to accurately represent gesture and proportion while integrating anatomical considerations to supplement and deepen the visual approach.
Once a week, 2 hours per session. $450 for 8 sessions, price includes model charge.
Advanced: Still Life Painting
This course builds on the cast painting exercises progressing into painting with color. You may choose from a variety of antique objects we have collected over the years in Italy and all over the world, bring your own items - or find inspiration at the local market picking fresh, seasonal fruit or vegetables. We teach you how to compose a beautiful set up and give you steps for successful completion. Students will be instructed on set up, choice of objects, composition essentials, color harmony, poetry, atmosphere which will be reinforced by master references. This course adds on interaction of objects and management of space.
Once or twice a week, 3 hours per session. $500 for 8 sessions, continued until the excersise set is complete.
Intensive Workshops
Intensive workshops are opportunities for concentrated learning on a topic of choice as well as guest-artist workshops. Master Copy, Portraiture, Guilding as well as Sculpture and Composition are offered as 3-5 day intensives at various dates during the year. For latest workshop details, see Workshops.
Testimonials
“My time studying at Anthesis was unique in all my education, I entered with a superficial understanding of drawing and left with a serious commitment to art. Tatyana is a fantastic artist and teacher - Her mastery of technique and her insight as an active professional artist were invaluable but what I appreciated most was her ability to work with my nature rather than imposing a simple formula. So while her instruction was rigorous, disciplined and precise it was also flexible - always aimed toward practicing art in the fullest sense, as a part of living. It’s hard to define what being an artist is.. nothing is so rigid as a label.. but I’m certain that if it were not for Tatyana I would not have been able to follow this fortunate path”. Jack Gils, Barcelona Academy of Art
"When I first attended Tatyana's classes, I had no aspiration to become a 'realist' painter but I was fascinated by her training and thought I could pick up some skills. A few weeks in I learned that Tatyana teaches so much more than skills. Her practice is a way of training the eye through attunement. Tatyana does teach strategies, but moreso meditation through drawing, with enhanced vision and accuracy being a side effect. I got hooked when I realised that what happens in that classroom has less to do with skill and more to do with devotion. It's beautiful, and if you're interested in art and also still looking for a form of meditation that works for you -- try Tatyana's classes. You will likely love them." Renee Gerlich, writer
“Tatyana Kulida is a supremely talented artist and gifted teacher, whose classes make accessible to students the drawing techniques that have been used by artists for hundreds of years.
In February 2024, I enrolled as a student in Tatyana Kulida’s classes, at first joining a five-day colour painting workshop, and then, from February-April, over a period of eight weeks, attending a once-weekly afternoon drawing class. The quality of instruction is high, the atmosphere stimulating and challenging. With the students’ own gifts of patience and attention - necessary to learning - significant progress can be made.
It is a real privilege to learn from someone who has had such a rigorous classical training, and who brings to her classes such a wealth of experience as well as talent - as is obvious from the paintings and drawings in her portfolio and on the walls of her studio. I know of no one else in Wellington, or indeed the country, who offers what Tatyana does: exposure to a rich tradition of classical drawing and painting, and an invitation to learn the processes and techniques that inform them.” Keren Chiaroni, Professional artist
“It is obvious from looking at the paintings on her website that Tatyana is an extraordinarily talented artist. Experts don’t always make the best teachers. I was therefore extremely pleased to experience her teaching on a recent “Advanced oil painting technique“ course. As a novice in oil painting I was worried that the course would be too advanced for me but Tatyana’s teaching soon put me at ease. She is an excellent teacher who understands the challenges that beginners face and how to support them to overcome these. I can’t wait to do another one of her courses.“ Ralph Pinnock, MD
“I learned more in two weeks from Tatyana than several years in art school” - Rachel Goolsby
“I am forever grateful for your teaching. I now paint every day; I have commissions; my classes are full, and I pass along what I have learned from you to my own students” - Sarah Jones
“Thanks again for the wonderful workshop over the last week. You are an excellant teacher and I learnt a great deal and couldn’t have wished for more. All I have to do now is put it into practice at my regular portrait and life art groups. And what an amazing studio you have built, just like the Paris salon studios. You really have achieved a lot in your (few) years here.” - John Hamlin
Student Policy
Payment is due prior to class start. Courses are booked for 8 weeks in advance. One missed lesson is allowed in each run of 8, each next miss is counted as a lesson unless the lesson is made up within two weeks. Two missed lessons are allowed in the run of 8 for those students coming twice a week (this excludes Figure drawing class as attendance is not enforced). This policy is a way to manage the small class size and limited number of students accommodated in each session - as well as ensure continued progress in student’s development. Classes are paused when Atelier closes for scheduled breaks. By virtue of attending classes a Anthesis Atelier you agree to this policy as stated above.