New "Fantasy Art Unlimited" Course

27 September 2006

Exciting news for Wizards Keep was announced today as a statement was issued that they have joined forces with Design and Communications Agency House of Trix to create a new Fantasy Art Course in Blackburn.

Following on from the success of the course designed and tutored by Tim Perkins and being held on Tuesday evenings at Blackburn College, Chris Trickett, Director of House of Trix, approached Tim to run a similar type of course. The main difference will be the length of this new course giving it much more scope for the students.

The venue for the course is in the Eanam Wharf Business Park Complex near to Blackburn town centre.

Course Content:

The course will cover lots of things from the basics of sketching loosely and confidently, through to inking and painting.

Topics covered include:

Comic books
Book Jackets
Children's Books
Cartoons
Storyboards
Character Designs
Background designs
Logo Designs
Storytelling techniques

And lots more besides...

The course is geared up to suit each individual student.

One student may wish to do comic book styled work whilst someone else wishes to work with storyboarding, and so on.

All students learn the same techniques but each employs these techniques with their own subject matter.

Tim's experience in the art fields enables his students to draw from a wealth of information, whether it is used for purely leisure or potentially commercial purposes.

During the course other professional illustrators and designers are invited along to act as guest speakers. The students are then able to watch as each creator works on an original piece of artwork, thus enabling them to see how different people all work in individual ways to achieve similar goals.

The course is not just about learning to draw and paint, etc, it is also a valuable resource for learning how the industries work and what it entails when looking for a career in the arts fields.

The students receive a special student discount card and can get their materials at discount prices from John and Ann at Portfolio artist's supplies in Simmon Street, Sudell Cross, Blackburn.

The students' work is usually exhibited at Blackburn Museum, at the end of the course.

There may also be an opportunity for the group of students to produce a finished illustration that will be used by Eanam Wharf Business Park. The Directors of House of Trix and Wizards Keep and the Directors of Eanam Wharf Business Park are presently discussing the format and content of this piece of work.

The above two events are a great opportunity to show their work and both events will be covered by the local newspaper and in the latter case may also receive Radio and TV coverage. 

The students each receive an induction pack consisting of a resource list of recommended artists, reference books, how-to books and websites where they can purchase the books from, etc.

There are ongoing demonstrations, by Tim, throughout the course.

E.G. how to "Loosen up" and "scribble" to sketch quickly and accurately.

Students are introduced to blueline pencilling techniques.

The emphasis on the course is having lots of fun: It is explained that if the professional artist or writer is not having fun this will be reflected in the work, and thus will influence the reaction of the reader/viewer, so it is imperative to have fun doing this for it to work well.

The course is scheduled to begin on Wednesday 18th October.

The course takes place on Wednesday evenings between 6:00pm and 9:00pm and lasts for 30 weeks with each session being 3 hours in length.

The cost of the course is £105.00 and is payable before the course starts enabling the administration to be completed prior to the start of the course.

The deadline for payments is Wednesday 11th October.

For further details email Tim Perkins at:

mail@wizards-keep.com