Maestro

My formal artistic education began at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence in September 2019. At that stage, I had very little experience as an artist. Before beginning my classical training, I had never painted figures, people or portraits, and had completed only a handful of landscapes, many of which remained unfinished. I had spent most of my professional life working as an accountant, but after a long period of introspection, I became certain that I needed to pursue art seriously. Although I did not initially know what kind of art I wanted to create, I knew how I wanted it to look. When I encountered the realism of the Old Masters, I recognised the visual language I had been searching for.

At the Angel Academy, I began with the fundamental disciplines of drawing, progressing from pencil to charcoal. My time in Florence was unexpectedly interrupted by the arrival of COVID-19, and I returned home before I had begun formal instruction in painting. In late 2020, Maestro Michael John Angel began teaching online, allowing me to continue the education I had started in Florence. Since then, I have studied with him consistently through one or two individual lessons each week, learning the craft of oil painting through sustained online instruction.

Maestro Angel’s teaching has shaped every aspect of my development as an artist. Under his guidance, I have learned to approach painting methodically—from the initial drawing and campitura through notan, underpainting, grisaille, colour and the gradual refinement of form. More importantly, he has taught me how to see: to understand structure, proportion, value, colour and the subtle transitions through which light describes form.

This training has given me far more than a collection of techniques. It has taught me patience, discipline and the importance of building a painting carefully rather than rushing towards a finished effect. Through years of regular study, correction and practice, I have progressed from having no experience painting the human figure to creating portraits and figurative works using the principles and methods of classical realism. Maestro Angel’s knowledge, rigour and generosity as a teacher have been instrumental in that transformation, and his guidance continues to inform the way I observe, think and work in the studio.