Art Lessons in Montreal, Canada

Atelier De Bresoles, Montreal:
Located in Old Montreal, Quebec, Atelier de Brésoles offers the most comprehensive instruction in figurative drawing and painting available in Canada. Our program combines precise perceptual training with structural concepts of the body to give our students a thorough understanding of the human form. Our instructors have learned drawing and painting techniques passed down through the academies of Russia, Italy, France, and the United States. We are carriers of a long tradition of figurative drawing, and base our teaching approach on this tradition. At the same time, we balance these traditional methods with a contemporary approach to the figure to give students the tools they need to arrive at a personal understanding of figurative art. Our courses utilize a variety of historical and modern materials. We teach students of all levels, and age 14 to adult, in a small-group setting.

Allana Benham is a contemporary figurative painter and co-founder of Atelier de Bresoles. She is an instructor of Cast Drawing, Artistic Anatomy, Historical Techniques of Drawing, and Landscape Painting. She has an MFA cum laude from the Graduate School of Figurative Art at the New York Academy, and a BA in Museum Studies from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She published a print and digital catalogue of the Minassian Collection of Persian, Islamic, and Mughal Miniature Paintings while at Brown University. She has studied drawing with Steven Assael, Deane G. Keller, and Edward Schmidt, anatomy with Frank Porcu, figure painting Vincent Desiderio, and landscape painting at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. She has attended dissection laboratories and observed surgeries for her anatomical research and is currently compiling a book on artistic anatomy and figure drawing. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and Canada.

We offer comprehensive programs in figurative drawing and painting. Cast Drawing; Life Drawing; Cast Painting; Landscape Painting; Anatomical Drawing; Historical Techniques of Drawing; Ecorché Sculpture. Our program combines precise perceptual training with structural concepts of the body to give our students a thorough understanding of the human form. All students begin their training at the atelier with a 4-week Cast Drawing course.