About Barry John Raybould's Virtual Art Academy® Painting Lessons

What is the Virtual Art Academy®?

The Virtual Art Academy® program is a structured four-year self-study program of painting and drawing lessons suitable for all media, authored by professional artist Barry John Raybould, M.A. The full program consists of 250 assignments, 56 pdf course units and 20 short video lectures. Buy the full program (or parts of it) by choosing one of the Course Options on the menu to the left. Then sign up for our Academy Membership to get exclusive access to our monthly members newsletter and to get mutual support on your artistic journey from other Virtual Art Academy students from all over the world via our Online Campus.	The Virtual Art Academy® Building Block™ approach to building your painting skills Read the letters our past students have sent us , or contact us for more information.
The Virtual Art Academy® course of lessons is the most comprehensive and structured program available on the internet. You will get a depth of information and knowledge on painting that you could otherwise only get at a major art school or academy. All the lesson materials are beautifully illustrated with extensive examples of the author's own work and of the old masters to help make it easier for you to learn and understand. The complete program is broken down into nine core skill Building Blocks to help you build a solid foundation for learning how to paint in a structured way. For beginners These oil and watercolor painting lessons will give you a structured methodical approach for progressing from an absolute beginner to a more advanced level. You can learn in the convenience of your own home and take as much time as you need to complete the lessons. Most other courses on the internet jump right into painting finished paintings by means of paint along demonstrations. The Virtual Art Academy program on the other hand focuses on giving you the solid foundation of skills that are essential if you want your paintings to improve. This is the exact same approach that traditional art academies throughout the centuries have taught the old masters. We call these foundational skills 'Building Blocks' (learn more about them by clicking on the links to the left). If you learn with the Virtual Art Academy, you will progress much faster with far less frustration and enjoy your steady progress. For advanced painters Unlike most other courses of painting lessons on the internet that mostly cater to the intermediate painter and hobbyist, these painting lessons contain a level and depth of information that is highly valuable for advanced and professional painters. Many students have said that the Virtual Art Academy course has filled in key gaps in their painting knowledge. The have discovered information here that they have not found anywhere else. The knowledge in these painting lessons has been applied in Barry's own work. His extensive awards and exhibitions are proof of its quality. For the story of how this program of study was created, read the history of the Virtual Art Academy project.
The painting lessons covers the principles that apply to all types of painting media including: oil painting lessons, acrylic painting lessons, watercolor painting lessons, and pastel painting lessons.

What you get

There are three major components to the program:

• Assignments — The complete program of painting lessons has 250 assignments that you can work on in your own time to help you master the skills covered in the painting course. With the lessons you get a learning program guide which tells you exactly what sequence to learn each of the lessons. Each painting lesson covers a critical foundation skill you need to learn on the path to becoming a fine artist. You can follow this sequence or you can choose your own custom learning path depending on your individual needs and interests.
• Art Reference Library — There are fifty six course units in the complete program grouped into nine basic Course Building Blocks™. These are the nine areas of skills that every artist needs to master in order to produce beautiful paintings. Each course unit is an e-book formatted in a printer-friendly pdf format (what is PDF?), that you download instantly from the web so you can start learning immediately. Not only can you view our course on your computer, but you can also put it on your Android smartphone, tablet computer, and even some e-reader devices, and take it with you wherever you go so you can refer to it wherever you are. If you prefer, you can print out the oil and watercolor painting lessons so that you can work on your assignments in your studio or out in the field. The reference materials are structured in a compact easy to read format so you can quickly refer back to any part of the course in the future. After you have collected each of the nine Building Blocks, you will have a vast reference library of information on painting that will form the core of your art library.
• Online Campus — A key part of the Virtual Art Academy learning experience is the online campus. This is where you will meet other artists all over the world who are studying the same oil painting lessons and watercolor painting lessons as you. Many students have found this the most valuable part of the whole program. These students are all working on the same structured program, and will often refer to specific sections of it as they are offering suggestions on your work. The community is friendly and helpful, and by becoming a part of it you will not feel isolated in your quest to become an artist. This will increase your motivation and you will learn faster.

Why are these painting lessons different?

Each year there are many new courses of painting lessons becoming available on the internet from companies with large marketing budgets and impressive web sites. The vast majority of these painting courses have painting lessons that are at a relatively shallow level and are aimed at the hobbyist market rather than the serious painter. I have put together this course of painting lessons for those of you who have already tried those other painting lessons, and who are now serious about improving your painting. I guarantee that if you follow this structured program and do all the assignments I set for you, you will see major improvements in your work. However, I will not promise you any quick fixes. You will have to make an effort to do the assignments I set for you if you want to learn how to paint, and this will require some work on your part.

My students tell me that after a lot of research they have found the Virtual Art Academy lessons to be the best painting course of oil and watercolor painting lessons available on the internet for the serious painter. I invite you to, sign up for membership in the academy for a month or two and meet those students personally on our private Online Campus and get a feel for the quality of the painting course. Ask our current students why they feel these are the best painting courses they have found for the serious painter who cannot afford to attend a full-time three or four year art program at an art school. If you are spending money on a course it is best to check out if it is the best painting course for before you buy it.

There are three key differences between the Virtual Art Academy courses and other courses on the web:

• The course is highly structured. You can read more below about the organization of the painting course into Building Blocks and Course Units. I do not focus on shallow techniques in an attempt to give you quick results. This is because I truly believe that in the long run this approach to learning will not work and you will end up being frustrated with your progress. Instead my approach is to teach you all the fundamental principles of painting and build up your skills one-by-one using a series of painting assignments in a logical step-by-step process. This will help you build a solid foundation of painting skills, that you can apply to oil painting, watercolor painting, acrylic painting, pastel painting and even photography. Only then will your painting improve. Read these emails from students about the structure of the painting course.
• The program is comprehensive. I have included in these courses everything I have learned on the road to becoming a professional artist. The result is that the material in the Full Course is equivalent to what you would get if you attended one of the best art schools for four years. Read these student emails about the comprehensiveness of the material in the painting course. I have been told many times by students that all the information in their library of art books is included somewhere in the Virtual Art Academy course units, and often in a format that is easier to understand. You might also want to check out my resume (bio) on the About Me page. When I am choosing a painting instructor to learn from I look to see how many awards they have won for their work, and also how many juried exhibitions they have participated in. I pay particular attention to museum exhibitions because museums are generally more selective about the artists they invite to exhibit. It is always a good idea to look for a detailed resume from the author whenever you buy a painting course from the internet. Of course the most important thing too is that you like the work they do!
• I use a writing technique called Information Mapping (see: what is an Information Map®). to make difficult concepts very easy to understand. I learned this method of writing when I used to run an international consulting company (in a previous career) that taught large corporations how to teach their employees more effectively. Read these emails from student about how easy the course material is to understand.

Of course you should not take my word for this. The best way to get a real idea of what these painting courses are about is to read the emails that students have sent me. These are emails happy students have sent me over the years and I have not edited them in any way.

You may also want to look up the Virtual Art Academy on independent software review sites such as the following: (Tip： when looking at painting review sites，check first to see if the site is earning an affiliate commission on sales from links to the products they are reviewing.）

• Visual Arts Journal Review
• Xomreviews
• Xmarks Reviews