Seneca College

Imagine an art school where they bring a tiger to pose as a model.


Or they let you draw outdoors from an armored knight on a draft horse.

Seneca College in Toronto, Ontario offers a certificate program in art fundamentals that covers drawing, illustration, design, color theory, photography and art history. Students can then follow degree programs in a wide range of art specialties, including animation, game art, and 3D digital animation.

Taught by working professional artists, the program is designed to give aspiring artists the tools they need to communicate visually.
One of Seneca’s instructors is Werner Zimmermann, who teaches life drawing. In his blog "Man4Art" he shares some of his off-the-cuff sketches, like this one of a dog and a cat on scrap paper.

He gives his students a deep understanding of anatomy by having them sculpt the muscle sets layer by layer from modeling clay.

After I gave my presentation, program coordinator Phillip Woolf posed for a quick portrait demonstration. Later, he explained his philosophies of art education.

“My teaching is an epic battle against shape and outline,” he said. He wants his students to get away from seeing the obvious outer facts of the model, but rather to explore “gesture, massing, and bulking of form,”….to “see structurally and draw structurally.”

Toronto is a competitive environment for art schools as well as being one of the major arts capitals of North America, with a host of leading animation studios.

Seneca has earned one of the finest reputations for the education it delivers to the motivated student. As Mr. Woolf said, “our graduates have all the techniques to take them on their own journey.”

Seneca's Art Fundamentals Program, link.
Seneca's Visual Arts Program, link.
More on building anatomy in clay, link. Thanks, Larry!