Bucks County Classical Arts Center

LEARN ABOUT BCCAC

"You can Draw and paint better than you knew you could. We can help you."

Bucks County Classical Arts Center (BCCAC) is an artistic hub founded by Atelier trained artist John Murdoch. We are here to provide professional quality art instruction in a smaller, more personal environment. Located in the heart of Bucks County, New Hope PA, our members come locally from Southeastern PA, from Central New Jersey, and as far away as Philadelphia and Delaware. The Center has been offering classes and workshops in old master drawing and painting techniques since 2010. In addition we have recently created an online portal for high quality access to instruction from anywhere around the globe.

We believe the classical observational skills and learning to draw and paint have never been more important than now. Drawing and painting skills are often neglected even in college art programs. We believe we occupy a special niche among ateliers and larger art institutions. In our class of instruction, we offer a smaller scale program with more personal attention and very high standards.

Our students and participants vary in age and experience. We have new students who have never picked up a pencil, working artists and college educated artists returning to further their study. A large portion of our students are professionals or  family oriented and wish to make art a second career. And finally we have successfully trained a handful of successful college bound young artists. The Saturday Drawing Program Intensive is perfect for this.

PART-TIME ATELIER

The Part-Time Atelier is our most vigorous course offered. You draw first. Then you paint in black and white. Finally you learn to handle a color palette and then compose your own compositions. The part-time atelier has a studio part and a life study (from the live model) part. The Part-Time atelier puts a strong emphasis on the studio portion of training as a large part of this can be completed by the student at home. The study of how to draw, learn paint handling, learn to paint etc are systematic and can be broken into smaller lessons. This is the beauty of the part-time atelier program. The benefit of this for students is immense because you will learn how to draw and paint just by doing the class and completing the exercises with valuable feedback from your instructors.

All our Part-Time Atelier programs offer the same progression of training. First you Draw. (The Drawing Program Intensive). 

Then you learn to do oil wash drawings, then oil paint in black and white. Then you learn to handle a limited color palette, and finally a full color palette. (The Painting Program Intensive)

There is a 3rd year program coming soon which will include composition, advanced color and more.

Each Program has studio time (casts, still-lifes, flat copies) and model time (life drawing or painting from the nude model or from the portrait model). 

Each of these programs runs from September to May the following year. The program takes 2 years to complete. 3 years if you took the advanced 3rd year. It is important to note some people take more time than others to truly gain mastery over different skills. Many students repeat the first year or decide to spend more time on the earlier levels until mastery is achieved.

The most vigorous program you could complete at BCCAC is the Wed, Fri, Sat Atelier program. For a sample of what class has to offer, students are invited to join a live class for free. Contact us at draw@buckscountyclassicalartscenter.org