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Meet Raz Seri of Boulder School of Fine Art in in Boulder

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Raz Seri.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Raz. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My name is Raz Seri, I’m from Israel. I studied art with a teacher in Israel, and when I decided I needed a more intensive art education, I went to Florence to study classical drawing and painting at the Florence Academy of Art, in Florence, Italy. I graduated in 2010, and a year later moved to the U.S., to Denver, CO. As a new immigrant to the United States, I began teaching drawing and painting in various locations, to kids and adults. I taught painting and drawing to groups, private classes, and in a class setting. A few years later, I started teaching at the “Art Student League of Denver” in 2015, I taught “French Academy Figure and Portrait Drawing and Painting” techniques based on the European ateliers methods. I believe the classical method develops a deep understanding of drawing, which is the basis of all art. After a successful run there, and a lot of interest from the community in Denver and Boulder, I decided to open the “Boulder School of Fine Art” in Boulder, CO with a student and business partner, Sharon Solomon. Our goal was to offer something unique and professional, a higher and more profound education of drawing and painting to adults.

We have been happily pleased with our school’s growth. We started the school three years ago, with only one class of 5 students, and three years later, we have classes that run four days a week, and more than 45 students that come every week.

Has it been a smooth road?
Owning a business has a lot of challenges, for example, developing a student base, developing a curriculum, working with different kinds of people, and different levels of background. I was lucky to have other people helping out with administrative duties, reasonable rent, handling tuition, sales, promotion, advertising, building the website, and so on not to mention people that believed in me and the school who encouraged me to continue.

Besides, the business challenges of creating a new school are the challenges of teaching my students my vision in art and changing their approach. For myself and the students, it’s very intense and requires a lot of effort and time.

What else should we know about The Boulder School of Fine Art and about you and your work?
The Boulder School of Fine Art is an art school that teaches a classical approach to drawing and painting the human figure and portraiture from life. Other artists teach portrait and figurative art, but BSOFA is unique because I teach students how to really see the subtleties of light and to observe nature and the rules of nature and portray that in their art.

I am proud of my students perseverance, passion and commitment. BSOFA is trying to create professional artists and help students improve their own art.

The instruction that I give is different than others because I relate to and teach all kinds of people from a variety of aspects of life and professions and their different styles and goals. BSOFA offers the long pose three times a week for a duration of 10-12 weeks, the model comes back to the same pose for the whole 12 weeks, which gives the student the opportunity to refine and finish their drawing and painting and deeply understand the classical approach, which is very rare in the US.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
When I first moved to the US, I lived in the Denver area and taught there for five years and then started the school in Boulder in 2016, so I know something about the art world in both cities.

Denver/Boulder is a very challenging market for artists, galleries and art schools. There isn’t much financial support for the arts in Colorado and people who live here are not that familiar with art, especially not with classical art.

But we’ve had a lot of interest and appreciation from people who have found us because there isn’t a lot of competition in the field of figurative art instruction in Colorado.

And costs are lower than NYC or San Francisco, so it is possible to be a start up art school and find an affordable location..

I wish that the Denver Museum of Art had a better, more extensive collection of paintings, and encouraged students to paint and draw copies of paintings on display from the permanent collection.

Pricing:

  • Long Pose Figure/Portrait Drawing and Painting $200/month of 4 sessions, 3 hours each
  • Introduction to Classical Technique Drawing and Painting $160/month of 4 sessions, 3 hours each
  • Thursday Evening Figure Sketching and Painting $120/month of 4 sessions, 2 hours each
  • Introduction to Painting Boulder Landscapes $180/month of 4 sessions, 3 hours each
  • Copying the Masters Paintings and Drawings $180/month of 4 sessions 3 hour each

Contact Info:

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