New York School of the Arts

Incredible art school! Ive been doing weekend classes for a couple months now. The instructors are great. Ive been taking with Eric Michelson and he’s helped me improve tremendously.

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Great environment for learning and working creatively. Fantastic, experienced teachers, staff, and wide diversity of students.

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Unfortunately I had a very poor experience with the Anatomy & Artistry class. I’d confirmed via email ahead of time that the class was appropriate for beginners with no drawing experience but the very first class we were asked to “draw some poses” from a live model with no direction or instruction. With no drawing experience and no idea where to start I just sat there like an idiot with no idea what to do. I ended up leaving class after 30 min.

The class was absolutely not beginner level and I was unable to get a full refund since I had attended a portion of the first class. Appropriately matching the learning content to a students skill level (or providing enough accurate information for the student to make that decision for themselves) is such an important part of art education that it makes me seriously doubt the quality and caliber of the overall instruction here.

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I have been coming to classes at New York School of the Arts for over a year now. It is a small intimate environment. Classes are not over-crowded. I recommend two instructors: Henry Finkelstein and Peter Bonner. Both teach a painting as well as a drawing class.
Henry emphasizes direct observation rather than any prescribed painting method. He does stress the fundamentals to his students: the right way to stretch and prime one's canvas, which brushes to choose, how to keep one's colors clean. He will set up a new (beautiful) still life to paint from, every two weeks. He is interested in where each student is coming from and strives to help them develop their own sensibility. He is knowledgable of paintings and the artists who painted them and keeps an extensive library of paintings on his laptop to show as examples for what he is talking about on a given day. This makes art history come alive and accessible. He welcomes questions and fosters dialogue amongst his students. I learn a great deal just listening to his conversations with the other students about the visual problems they are encountering. Henry comes from a place of depth as a teacher and is skilled in teaching both the beginning and the advanced student. It is exciting to see my work evolve over time.
Another stand-out instructor, Peter Bonner, had me out of my comfort zone with my preconceptions challenged as I began cutting up my old drawings and rearranging them into collages of new shapes. Peter stresses that one always consider relationships - how shapes and colors interact in a very dynamic way with each other and how one (at times gropingly) finds one's way to a personally meaningful outcome. There are lively class discussions as we arrange and rearrange our projects on long tables or directly on the walls. There is no model or other visual reference point available to depict. In his endeavor to teach the creative process, Peter often says that if you lose it you will find it again.

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For many years I have searched for an art school close to me where I could continue my studies in the arts. I had been a decorative painter for 40 years and retired at 72 when I felt I was too old to keep climbing ladders and work at such. Physically demanding job. And Boom! I fell on the NYSA. What a joy!!! Now at 82 I am taking two classes : 1 for figure drawing on Monday with Henry Finkelstein and watercolor on Wednesday morning with
Beth Allison
The classes are fun, encouraging and very rewarding thanks to the caliber of the teachers, both wonderful artists in their own right

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