About Us

We teach the essentials of drawing in a unique and easy-to-understand way

Explore Classes

Easy-to-understand teaching technique.

Foundation Art School is dedicated to beginning and intermediate artists with the goal of teaching drawing fundamentals in a way that is more accessible and easy to understand. Students will learn about core concepts that are common to all branches of representational art such as basic shapes; C-curves, S-curves, and straights; gesture, structure, and lighting; shape, value, and edge; anatomy; drapery/clothing; and perspective. Our classes are designed to help students understand these concepts and develop a foundation that can be used to pursue more complex subjects such as painting, illustration, concepting, storyboarding, animation, fine art, etc. Foundation Art School isn’t designed to compete with other schools but rather teach students the skills they need to succeed at other, more advanced schools such as Watts Atelier, Brainstorm School, Gnomon, or any of the other great art schools out there. No matter what branch of representational art you want to pursue, we can help you get started.

The Basics

What makes us different...

Our multi-camera studio setup allows students the perfect view of the instructor's drawing pad as well as their workspace, posture, pencil-holding technique and how they manipulate the drawing board. We encourage our students to tackle the subject matter by drawing independently after viewing demonstrations. This emulates the experience of a real-life class while allowing for a flexible weekly schedule and workflow. Students then have the opportunity to ask questions and see a draw-over critique of their own work as well as the critiques for the rest of the class.

Meet our team...

Brian Knox

Lead Instructor & Co-Founder

Brian Knox was first a student and then an instructor at Watts Atelier of the Arts. As a student his focus was on simple and logical head and figure construction. As an instructor his dedication to teaching full time allowed him to find clear explanations for complicated concepts. When combined with his gesture based structural approach to head and figure drawing, he helped countless students tackle difficult problems throughout the 7 years he taught at Watts. After identifying a need for a more accessible program dedicated to beginning and intermediate students, Brian created Foundation Art School. This school functions as a gateway into drawing and representational art and gives students the foundation they need to pursue more complex subjects at other schools. This also creates a situation where Brian can take whatever time is necessary to ensure that each student has the exact information they need, which is a critical factor early in one's development. Foundation Art School is designed to help students develop core skills that they can build on for the rest of their lives.

Olivia Page

Co-Founder

Olivia is a professional caricature artist, illustrator, and carpenter. She has been drawing caricatures professionally for over 9 years and has done illustrations for many major companies such as Twitter, Canon, UCSD, and The San Diego Padres. Olivia has traveled the continental United States drawing live caricatures at hundreds of events and fairs. She is passionate about storytelling through art and aims to empower her students with the ability to bring their drawings to life with the magic of caricature. She specializes in traditional media such as graphite, pen and ink, and gouache, but enjoys illustrating digitally in Procreate as well.

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