Learn to Draw & Paint from a Living Master — All Levels Welcome

Zimou T.

I've been painting people for over 25 years, and teaching almost as long. I'm a portrait painter here in New York — my training runs through two of the country's top art schools, the Academy of Art University in San Francisco (BFA in Fine Arts and Traditional Illustration) and the Savannah College of Art and Design (MFA). Along the way my work ended up in some places I'm proud of: the Butler Institute of American Art, the De Young Museum, the Salmagundi Club. In 2017 the Art Renewal Center named me an Associate Living Master, which is a fancy way of saying I paint the slow, old-fashioned way, and I love it.

Teaching has been half my working life. I spent twelve years teaching drawing and painting at the Academy of Art University, and since 2015 I've been Associate Dean at the Olivet School of Art and Design. But honestly, some of my favorite teaching happened outside the classroom — ten years of community programs in San Francisco, teaching seniors through Art With Elders and kids through the Center for Elders and Youth in the Arts. I've taught nine-year-olds holding a pencil for the first time and seventy-year-olds picking one up again after fifty years. Everyone can learn this. I've watched it happen too many times to doubt it.

Here's how I teach: I show you how to see before I show you how to draw. We start with simple shapes and proportion, then light and shadow, then color. In online lessons I set a camera right over my easel so you're looking over my shoulder as I demonstrate — then you work, and I coach you through it. I'll always tell you honestly what's working and what isn't, but you'll never leave a lesson discouraged. Whether you're a total beginner, a parent looking for real instruction for your kid, or a student building an art school portfolio, I can help. I teach in English or Chinese.