Summer immersions at Telluride's Ah Haa School continue

31 May Summer immersions at Telluride's Ah Haa School continue

[click “Play” to listen to Susan’s conversation with Robert Lemler]

kicker: Lemler teaches “Light & the Figurative Subject in Oil”

Telluride’s Ah Haa School continues its summer immersions program with an intensive in “Light & the Figurative in Oil.” The class is scheduled for Thursday, July 7 –  Sunday, July 10. The instructor is Robert Lemler.

We hold these truths to be self evident…. Art and light became twins at the end of the 19th century with the emergence of the Impressionists, but throughout art history, artists have used light to direct the eye of the viewer. Rembrandt, for instance, routinely lit eyes, the windows of the soul, and hands. Vermeer transformed light into dots, blobs and dashes of white paint that danced in the foreground of his paintings, suggesting the eye land here or there. (And then go goofy about the details in the overall image.) 

But the Impressionists had the subject of light down to a science. Literally. At the time, scientists observed that light had both wave-like properties and particle-like properties. These complementary aspects of light were beautifully recorded in works such as Monet’s “Haystacks” and Seurat’s “La Grand Jatte.”  We turn to Einstein for the theory that matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. And one can be converted into the other – with the flick of the brush. When painters choose colors according to their relative energies within the spectrum, the subject matter becomes a record of light mediated through color.

In Robert Lemler’s class, the focus is light and its characteristics of direction, strength and color.

Lemler is a respected and dedicated artist and teacher educated at Northern Arizona University. His award-winning paintings are on display in fine art galleries throughout the country and are included in numerous corporate and private collections. His many honors include Gold Medals at the national exhibitions for Oil Painters of America and Pastel Society of America, as well as the prestigious Grumbacher Hall of Fame Award. Lemler has taught portrait, figure and life drawing classes in oil and pastel for more than a decade.

To learn more, click the “play” button and listen to Robert Lemler’s interview.