You can contact George Roland Wills at (386) 274-4866 or write him at gallery_513@yahoo.com (or at ... iwasbeowulf56@gmail.com).
A Brand New Instructional Video from George Roland Wills! After ten years, George has just completed the drawing of HARMONY MARLIN, as the subject of a five and a half hour series of 3 DVDs. This is available in DVD format, and for sale or rent as an Amazon on-line AVOD (Amazon Video on Demand).
It is a poor student who cannot best his teacher - The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tsu
Many people want to be able to draw in such a way as to literally stop the viewer in his tracks, and make him stare at the work in absolute appreciation of its achievement and complexity. The main problem with learning how this is done is that those who know how do not want to teach others how it is done. Books on the subject do not teach the exact way to do it. College art classes refuse to get anywhere near a technique this advanced, and this exact. You will get better for having taken and studied at the college, but you will not get an intensive gift of exactly how to do this treasured thing... until now.
This is the very reason why this school was developed; to make available to everyone the secrets to rendering pencil drawings in not only the style of realism... but in the style known as Extreme Realism, a technique and an invention of George Roland Wills.
The Gallery513 School of Art & Portraiture began June 1,1998, and went into hiatus in February of 2008 due to family health issues. The school had a total of nearly 150 students, 15 instructor-certified graduates, and graduated around 70 of its Course III students.
This school is a NO PRESSURE classroom environment where the instructor literally spoon feeds the lessons to the students. Their job is to simply show up, and be shown the secrets to Extreme Realism drawing... something that many of them have wanted to be shown since they first took up a pencil, and tried to draw anything.
George's school is unique in this regard. He is an artist who actually can do this style of work... is willing to show others how to accomplish what he does, and then has the ability to teach it in such a way that everyone understands and gets it in the classroom environment he provides.
Each of the classes is divided into two hour sections, and the first hour is LECTURE, wherein George reads the lessons from THE BOOK he wrote on the subject. The lessons are in this way STANDARDIZED, and every class learns exactly the same thing, no matter who teaches each class.
The class lecture notes have now been released to KINDLE on Amazon.com. They are found here: (You can download a free KINDLE reader for either MAC or PC and read these at your computer!)
Extreme Realism Graphite Pencil Portraiture Drawing Lecture Notes from the Gallery513 School of Art & Portraiture
The second hour is LAB assignments, and the whole hour is given to the students working on their own assignments, portraits, or whatever they have to do that day from the LECTURE. George then wanders around the room and offers assistance and answers questions from each of the students, one at a time.
The original Virtual Video Classroom DVDs are found here:
Extreme Realism Drawing DVDs, Courses I, II, and II
(The Amazon reviews are not indicative of customer satisfaction. We sold eighty copies of Course I alone this last year, with the other courses following in sequence. None were returned for refund! Apparently, only the malcontented write reviews, for the most part!)
Note: because I no longer offer classes, this page is a 'dead link' now. My personal contact information is missing. All of my contact information has been removed from here, save for the Amazon.com ordering information. This page is now displayed only to show my artwork, the artwork of my students, and the ordering information through Amazon.com for all of the various films that I have produced, such as the drawing videos or the documentaries, motion pictures, and the Civil War Reenactments...
The Amazon films may all be found here, under Movies & TV, using George Roland Wills as a search name.
The Gallery513 School of Art & Portraiture, itself, was founded in Bedford, Virginia, at the Rainbow Tree Artisan Gallery in 1998.
It would eventually have satellite schools with the Roanoke City Department of Parks and Recreation (through George's five year affiliation as a lifeguard with Fallon Park Pool), Sedalia Center (in Big Island), Sunflower Studios at Smith Mountain Lake (in Moneta), and at New Covenant Christian Schools in Bedford, Virginia, where George was actually a member of the faculty and still taught his own art program, certifying the students with the same diplomas that all the students receive. George was with the NCSB schools during a three year time period, until the New Covenant School had to close for financial reasons.
All supplies are included in the cost of the tuition, and all students will thus be using the same pencils, paper, and other supplies. The type of supplies used is actually one half the battle in getting a gorgeous drawing to manifest on the paper in front of a student. We use Berol Turquoise HB, 3B, 6B, 2H, and 3H pencils, Strathmore 80 pound bond drawing paper, and white hard erasers as well as kneaded rubber erasers for our projects. These are all supplied to the student free of charge during the classroom lessons, and replaced by the teacher as becomes necessary. Electric pencil sharpeners, boxes of tissues (for blending skin tones), tortillons and other blending stumps, and other needs are also supplied by the instructor.
The courses are divided into three sections; Course I, Course II, and Course III. Each course meets one day a week for two hours, for a total of ten hours per course. Three of these courses will then graduate the student into either a Course IV Instructor's School, or else a Course V Colored Pencil Course, a Course VI Charcoal Course, or a Course VII Pastels Course. Graduated classes also have the option to continue coming and simply working on projects during the class time with the instructor present to assist in their completions. Some students have been with George for years...
George has charged $120.00 per student per course for the ten years he has taught at his school, and he has not gone up on his tuitions since the beginning. He still charges this amount, all supplies included.
George also allows his students to email him questions, and pictures of their works in progress, and he spot-deduces what is 'wrong' with the drawing, makes suggestions over the email as to how to correct the work, and then waits for a change in the drawing to be made, and another picture then sent back to him after the changes are made for approval. This can be done if the student so desires.
George had taken precautions against such an occurrence such as his school being forced to close, for one reason or another, back in the year 2000. He filmed onto VHS tape all of the principles of his drawing method and made three separate videos, which divided into the three actual courses he teaches in his classrooms; Course I, Course II, and Course III. In 2009, George transferred these VHS tapes into digital, and recorded them onto DVDs. Amazon.com now carries these three disc sets, and these are available from Amazon.com by clicking this link.
Below is a series of videos from youtube which shows both students and instructors artwork, as well as a trailer for the Amazon.com three DVD Extreme Realism drawing courses.
In August of 2003, the student art work was displayed in an art show at the Bedford Central Library for four weeks. 68 drawings were featured in the exhibit at one time, and we had so many submissions that some students switched their work out to allow everyone to be displayed for at least a week. There were no ribbons nor awards given, not even a people's choice. Art shows are always ruined for some by such competitions, and we do not compete with anyone but ourselves at Gallery513.
The Show was entitled Portraits in Graphite, and the Youtube video is called Pictures at an Exhibition.
Captured Moments...
by Lauren Young, Instructor - Gallery513 School of Art & Portraiture
Lauren Young was one of my proudest moments as an instructor. She has absolutely excelled in every possible way, and her tireless and prolific devotion to her craft has rewarded her handsomely. I invite you to consider her achievements in the field and consider her for any commissioned portraiture you may need. http://www.capturedmoments.bz/index.htm
The Extreme Realism series from Gallery513:
The 'Institute' portion of the title refers to the future idea of combining all the artistic disciplines into one school of thought; an institute of artistic endeavor. The 'School of Art' thus incorporates all of the studies, including film-making and historical preservation through documentaries.
The idea for an actual institute of advanced artistic sciences is in the future. Such an institute would hope to bring the best and the brightest together to share their knowledge with those who would otherwise not explore these avenues of potential in their lives. Subjects such as drawing, pastels, oil painting, and sculpting would be on property next to an acting school, a film-making school, an advanced computer-learning school for iMac and Apple products, a Chess school and club, and any of the other disciplines. A rural, out of the way setting in a quiet location would be the best plan for such an institute. A campus with well-designed dormitories and living quarters, for very advanced lessons given on a particular subject, and said lessons being completed in a few weeks time, per subject. A standardized course of study (such as the drawing school already is, at this present time) which literally spoon-feeds the information to the student in a zero-pressure environment...
This is the floor plan for the future Gallery513 School of Art & Portraiture Institute.