Mastering Light & Form with Pluvium

Sign-ups open Monday March 2nd at Noon ET!

In this brand new 8 week live course, Pluvium (PLGR) will take you through the fundamentals of learning light & form so that when you look at references you can break down and understand what you see without copying, using your knowledge to confidently compose an image.

We’ll Cover:

• How to observe
• How to study fundamentals from references
• Light, Form & Shapes

Week 1: Intro: Intro on my background and approach to art.
Student portfolio and goals and what you should focus on in this class. Figure out what fundamentals could help you and what to prioritize or skip. We will go over each student’s recent works to see which area could be worked on in alginment with the individuals’ goals
Week 2: Observational acuity. How do we choose different types of references. Read, analyze the reference and extract the information you need from them. Getting the correct information from reference is not only crucial to the current work piece, but is a determining factor in building your visual library. Build wrong ones, draw wrong things.
Week 3: Shape extraction vs form simplification
Week 4: Deep diving on one reference, what am looking for when I study. We will mainly use protraits as a vehicle to demonstrate workflow and concepts.
Week 5: Self critique on technicality and asethetics. What is a useful format of critique? A skill that you may benefit from far beyond the time you spend in this class.
Week 6: Using multiple references to craft your art and applying visual library in conjunction.
Week 7: Dynamic range and balance of values and shapes. Lighting and form can be used as key elements of composition. Ground the art in realism and deviate with intent.
Week 8: Finding what you care about whether it is a thoughtful concept or a small surface level element. Artistic style is a projection of what you like. It is an emergent property of your deviation from realism, and your bias for how to frame an idea. It can make even the most mundane visually interesting.

Duration: 8 weeks
Date & Time: Sundays at 5PM ET starting Sunday April 12
Skill level: All skill levels welcome
Tiers: 12 Critique spots – Receive feedback or spectate without homework feedback
Format: 4-5 hour live class with combination of lectures, demos, and feedback. Recordings will be provided within ~2 days of each class.
Materials: Any digital or traditional mediums. Paintovers will be done digitally.