Don Perlis  Artist 

Art Class Description

American painter Don Perlis was already a well known painter when his painting of the Death of George Floyd reached national headlines across the USA. As an artist of more than 50 years exhibiting experience and a teacher with more than 35 years of experience Don was no stranger to depicting civil unrest and social injustice in his paintings when he submitted the painting chosen by the George Floyd Justice Committee to bring the issue to the attention of the US citizenry in a very public way.

From October 2020 to January 2021 large scale billboards went up across America depicting the exact moment of Floyd’s death in the Don Perlis painting. It was a humanitarian message rather than a political one with accompanying script from the Dalai Lama in Times Square New York “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible” and from Martin Luther King in many other places “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

Don’s recent exhibitions have included Paintings that deal “head on” with social issues including “Trump World”, “Roe -v- Wade”, “Warrior Women” (Me too movement) and "Love in the time of Covid”.

Don's class is open to beginners as well as advanced students. It is a class teaching the fundamentals of figurative painting. There will be a model available and posed in a setting. Students will have a deeper understanding of the process by the end of class.

Students may choose to study figure drawing, portraiture, or figure composition in oil. They may try any combination of these media. They will have a model in class for the entire session of the class. For students who choose drawing, by end of the class they will have an increased understanding of anatomy, proportion, light and shade, composition as well as line.

All the students will draw the first few days.

If some then decide solely on portraiture, they will focus on the head. This includes drawing, constructing a head in paint, which will include the use of oils, painting techniques, laying out the palate, mixing colour, using tone and brushwork.

For students interested also in pursuing composition, the previous skills will be applied and the painting will encompass a larger space including the full figure and the room.

Don will demonstrate the use of drawing in relation to painting, and the process from the drawing stage to the completed painting.

At the end of the class students will be encouraged to exhibit their work (either for sale or not), along with their sketchbooks or concertina books in an exhibition of the work by the whole class.