Who Are We?
Founded in 2003, we are a small independent organization whose goal is to publish and distribute high quality self-study art instruction courses over the internet (we are not a bricks & mortar institution). We provide the level and quality of instruction that you would get at an accredited art institution or art academy. Our unique combination of low overheads and distribution of materials in electronic form using pdf files, lets us to deliver quality art instruction at a fraction of the price of the larger art academies and institutions.
The author of the course materials is the artist Barry John Raybould.
Watch a video about the Virtual Art Academy®
Who Are Our Students?
We have over 5000 students all over the world on every continent. Their level ranges from complete beginners to professional painters selling in galleries. Our students use a variety of media from oil, watercolors, acrylics and pastels.
Who Are Our Partners?
 We have been endorsed by and have entered into a joint marketing relationship with International Artist Magazine, the most prestigious international art magazine written for artists. Each issue features a two-page spread of material from the Virtual Art Academy courses.
Who Founded The Virtual Art Academy®?
The Virtual Art Academy® was founded by Barry John Raybould, MA, a professional artist with gallery representation at several major galleries, and whose work has been shown in many museum exhibitions and juried shows. You can read more about his qualifications on his website, and also on the website of the art organizations of which he is a member: Carmel Art Association and California Art Club. You can also see his listing on AskArt.com.
You can Google "Barry John Raybould" and see what websites come up in the search. This will give you an independent view of the author, as well as show you what galleries and museum shows he exhibits in. If you are purchasing art instruction over the internet we recommend you Google the authors of any art course you are considering purchasing in order to protect yourself. Any reputable author will have several pages of references (not to sites owned by them of course).
What Are Our Students Are Saying About Us
You can read what are students are saying about us on our testimonials page. This is another way to get an independent idea of what we provide (we did not write any of these – they were all sent to us unsolicited). If you area considering purchasing our complete program, we suggest you read theses testimonials carefully so you know what you are getting.
A Word From Our Founder About the History of the Project
... by Barry John Raybould
 Why did I start this project? The first reason was that several of my students were pressing me to write a book based on the information I was giving them during my week-long workhops. They were tellling me that some of the explanations I was giving them for what makes a painting work were new to them. These explanations very clearly showed them the problems they were having with their paintings. They thought I should capture the ideas for the benefit of other artists who were wanting to improve their painting.
A second reason was that over the years I had gathered some extremely valuable information from my own studies with several master artists. The problem was that all this valuable information remained buried in hundreds of sketch books and note books that I have accumulated over the years. In addition, I have also gathered a personal library of about a hundred 'how to' art books (a $5,000 investment!). Most of the really valuable information in these books lay deep in long paragraphs of text and was almost impossible to find again when I needed it. Also I have been lucky enough to have various good friends loan me some very rare and difficult to find books, written over a hundred years ago. I had to make very careful notes from these books so I could refer to the information in the future.
To make all the information useful to me and help me grow as an artist I had to rewrite all this information and organize it better so I could refer to it more easily when I needed it. Thus the Virtual Art Academy reference library was born!
I initially considered writing a book such as you see in the large bookstore chains. However, whenever I looked at these books I saw that they treat the key issues in painting very superficially. Mostly each book contains a repetition of
some very basic principles, and does not treat any one particular subject in a useful level of depth.
For anyone who really wants to learn how to paint better
this is a great frustration – it certainly was frustrating for me as I was learning. It gradually became clear to me as I was writing that there was no way I could get the information a serious artist needs to know in the 140 pages that these commercial books seemed to be limited to. I soon realized as I started writing
that I was going to need well over
a thousand pages to do a thorough job of covering all the topics I wanted to write about in sufficient depth – and that was using a very compact writing style
called structured writing. That is why the courses are structured into about nine key categories,
each with around six sub-topic areas (course units), and each course in turn contains about seven to ten
key principles/ideas/concepts in it.
Because of the size of the books and the associated publishing costs, combined with the relatively small distribution (only serious artists want to buy this kind of information), I quickly realized that no publisher could afford to publish this series, unless the price was in the several thousand dollar range. However with the rise of the internet and the widespread distribution of Adobe Reader and pdf files, self-publishing became a real possibility. By producing each book in electronic pdf form I could get the price down to something more affordable, even with the very high advertizing costs on the internet, and the high cost of text layout and graphic design for each of the course units.
So we started a homegrown Virtual Art Academy® website, by using open source e-commerce software and published the books using some desktop publishing software that was used by Fortune 500 companies to publish their software manuals. We used a special type of structured writing methodology (that is also used by many Fortune 500 companies) to make the material much easier to read and make it much easier to learn from than the standard art book you find in the bookstores. (Those Fortune 500 companies had a good reason to use that approach – their employees learned much faster!).
Within twelve months of launching the website, we were "discovered" by International Marketing Magazine. They told us they thought we had a very high quality level of art instruction materials, and that it was very different from any other art instruction they had seen. Within a week we started a joint marketing venture. Ever since then they have given us a two-page spread in every issue of their magazine, and they now market our courses all over the world to their 80,000 subscribers. International Artist Magazine had always been one of my favorite artist magazines because they have some high quality artists contribute to it, and it was nice to have an association with them.
Since that time our Virtual Art Academy membership has been growing and growing, so that now we have well over four thousand members all over the world, on every continent. Although I do not have the time to teach all of our members personally, since most of my time is spent in painting and improving my own painting skills,(information I share with you by the way in the periodic updates I do to the course materials), and in the never ending job of writing new courses, I do know many of you from the emails you have sent me and from the critiques of your work that I do from time to time. It is rewarding for me to know that I can now share far more of my knowledge and with a much wider audience than I ever could in a week-long workshop. I welcome you to join us!
Enjoy the courses and happy painting!
Barry John Raybould |
