MODERN COLOR ATELIER

Director: Kimberly Trowbridge

2022/23 Instructors:

Ashley Johnson, Design Concepts and Collage

Amy Erickson, Perceptual Still Life Painting

Sarah Bixler, Mixed Media Figure Drawing

The Modern Color Atelier is a multi-year, online program with a focus on the method of color-blocking, wherein color is the primary building block for constructing images. 

The Modern Color Atelier is a community of students that research and develop visual concepts, engage with art history, and contribute their individual approaches to painting.

Under the guidance of Director Kimberly Trowbridge, students learn to analyze color relationships based on value, temperature, and intensity. With this language, students construct and explore meaningful images that narrate their experience. 

Students meet twice weekly with trained instructors who will guide you through the formal concepts of color. Sessions include lectures on historical and contemporary paintings, introduction of visual concepts, and demonstrations of studio exercises. Students work from observed still-life objects, master-work compositions, and the figure model using drawing, collage, and oil painting techniques. 

An additional session per week is dedicated to individual studio time. Sessions are interspersed with individual consultations and group critiques.

The Atelier begins in mid-September and ends in mid-June.

Modern Color Atelier Curriculum Outline


ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:



I am a teacher, a mentor, an advocate, and a witness for my students.

"Expanding on the Modernist tradition, I teach the formal language of color as the primary means for building images. My teaching method engages students in the process of identifying color relationships with a vocabulary that empowers them to make meaningful, articulate decisions on the palette. Teaching, for me, is a dialogue and collaboration with my students." -- Kimberly Trowbridge

Kimberly Trowbridge has taught painting and drawing at the University of Washington, Seattle, Western Washington University, Bellingham, and the Mount Gretna School of Art in Pennsylvania.  She began teaching at Gage Academy in 2006 and launched the Trowbridge Atelier in 2014, offering a rigorous program for devoted students to learn a practical, hands-on understanding of color concepts. Starting in 2022, the newly imagined Modern Color Atelier features a new team of teaching artists to implement and coach students under the guidance of Trowbridge's methods.


MEET THE INSTRUCTORS:

Ashley Johnson, Design Concepts and Collage

Ashley is a painter, writer, nurse, and teacher based in Bremerton, Washington. She is currently an MFA candidate at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (2022) and is an alumnus of the Trowbridge Atelier (2020). She is a Fred and Naomi Hazell Art Scholarship recipient through PAFA (2021), a two-time Dennis Evans and Nancy Mee scholarship recipient through Gage Academy of Art (2018, 2019), and has recently shown her work at the Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle. 

I make paintings, drawings, and collages as reenactments of bodily experiences within the forest, often depicting figures immersed and dissolving into and out of a plant, mushroom, or tree. My work grapples with the slow collective loss of our forests and animals. I explore these themes with color relationships which capture the connection between the painful and joyous moments of living. I began my long wilderness wanderings in 2016 on the Pacific Crest Trail, walking the length of the country from the Canadian border to the Mexican border over the course of four months, an experience that remains deeply meaningful to my painting practice today. 

Amy Erickson, Perceptual Still Life Painting

Amy Erickson is an observational painter who lives and works in Seattle, WA. She earned a BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute and has pursued further training in painting and figure drawing at Gage Academy of Art (Trowbridge Atelier, 2020; Flack Atelier, 2019). Amy has exhibited in many cities in the US, including Seattle and New York.  Amy has taught workshops for Warrior Art Camp, Gage Academy of Art, and the Seattle Artist League.

I draw inspiration for my compositions through a process of searching junk shops, the personal belongings of loved ones, and my own domestic surroundings. The sentimental or symbolic attachment I have toward these objects is merely a jumping-off point for deeper perceptual digestion. The interplay between looking, recording, and composing through mark and shape is the core of my process. The experience of making is both exploring and surrendering what is "precious" - a journey toward discovering something more sublime.

Sarah Bixler, Mixed Media Figure Drawing

Sarah Bixler is a painter and educator in Seattle Washington.  She began her artistic studies at Gage Academy of Art where she deepened her understanding of the human body through long-form sculpture, anatomy and drawing from direct observation.  In 2011, Sarah received a BFA from the University of Washington where she studied contemporary drawing and painting. She has taught observational drawing and painting since 2011 and has offered classes at Winslow Art Center, Seattle Artist League and Gage Academy of Art.   

I am interested in the tension between representation and abstraction. I primarily work from observation and am interested in how painting and drawing transcribe the elements of observed space into marks of color and value. I love that working observationally changes the way we see the world and empowers us to notice the quiet moments of beauty that permeate our daily lives. As an instructor I focus on helping students see big areas of color and value, while developing a logical framework for understanding the relativity of color and color relationships. My teaching builds on the legacy of Charles Hawthorne and Edwin Dickinson, using observed areas of color and value to describe the form as it presents itself in its current moment, regardless of prior knowledge or assumptions of what a form should be. 
 

2022/23 Full   $9,190

Check out our Scholarships HERE.

Students receive the following perks during their time in the Atelier:

• 15% discount on any class or workshop throughout the year 
• Free admission to all lectures, noon-time professional development seminars and art talks, both online and in-person. 
• Free attendance to Open Studios 
• Library: Students may check out books from the art library in the Capitol Hill office. 
• Studio spaces available for local students