This bundle includes two art instructional videos by Scott Tallman Powers

15 hours of in-depth instruction

Scott Tallman Powers: City Scene

This outstanding video shows how to simplify an outdoor Chicago scene on a rainy day into a gallery-worthy painting. Scott's instructions on how, why, what to do, and what not to do are virtually continuous as he paints. His art education and his long participation in the art scene provide him with in-depth knowledge, and he communicates that to the viewer in a down-to-earth style.

If you enjoy painting city scenes or if you want to learn how it's done, this is the video for you. Scott explains his thoughts and actions thoroughly and leaves no doubt of what to do to ensure that a painting reflects the artistic nature of a scene.

Scott Tallman Powers: Life in the Market

This video is really two programs in one. It can be viewed by an emerging painter as simply an instructive tool that shows how to arrange materials, mix paints and apply them in a pleasing manner on the canvas.....certainly, a worthy goal in its own. Scott's bravura techniques with brushes, palette knives, fingers and rags are skills to be strived for, and mesmerizing to watch. But, on a much deeper level, this program is about how the artist gathers and responds to the reference materials to create a world of the artist's own making within the culture he seeks to reveal to his viewer.

"Constructing a Market Scene" is about the entire process the painter employs. It shows you the preparation necessary to produce large narrative works that mark the difference between a short, on-location demo and a painting destined to hang in the permanent collection of a museum. The painting is based first on an abstract idea of composition of shapes and values, with the subjects of the market sellers and customers being the central characters. Secondly, the environment of the bustling market set up under swaying umbrellas and local trees establish the outdoor ambiance. But lastly, it takes the viewer on a journey through the market in a way that a gallery visitor will never experience. While the characters are all conjured out of the artist's head, one can easily imagine being there right behind his shoulder as he directs the movement of the figure's body, hands and gestures to suit his intent about the interchange between the people in the scene. It becomes a moving tableau.

Several, small, on-the-spot studies allowed Scott to capture the color harmonies unique to this market, and to record the gestures that will give conversation between the figures in the work. Additionally, he took hundreds of photographs of other figures in the market to have as additional references for background interest and authentic costuming. During the painting process, it is as interesting to see how Scott chooses his references as how he paints them onto the canvas. Also, the painting emerges through a series of ideas that is constantly changing. He will first decide to paint a cart in one area, and then change his mind and turn it into a woman with a bag of potatoes at her feet. This is why the DVD is a second program all its own.

The final painting goes through a metamorphosis from beginning to end that tells a story all by itself, one that starts out one way and ends up another. This is something you one can't experience by just viewing the final painting hanging in the gallery. The painting ends up being a movie in itself, with small plot shifts and emphasis changing along the way. But, this is the way a painting is created out of one's head......not simply a record of a single photograph of a simple place in time....and the reason this DVD is so different than some of the other we have filmed and produced.