Frank Clarke Simply Painting

About Frank As seen on PBS/CREATE Frank Clarke was born in Dublin, Ireland. It was after retiring early from a career that included dress designing and property development that he decided to take up painting as a hobby. He joined a painting group where he felt intimidated and inferior. After six weeks he quit the group because he was told that he did not have the gift. But he was not one to be easily put off. Whether or not he had the gift he was to pursue his hobby. It was then that he made a most unusual discovery: "No one was prepared to show him the basics of painting." Having read every art instruction book he could get his hands on Frank came to the conclusion that they all seemed to start at Chapter 4 making the assumption that he had some prior knowledge of painting which of course he did not . It was then that Frank decided to write these missing chapters and it worked ....Simply Painting was born. The first book became a best seller, outselling all other art teaching books combined in it's first year in Ireland. By then Frank had also made his first television series. The success of Simply Painting has been phenomenal with Frank's book "Frank Clarke's Paintbox,-PUBLISHED BY THE BBC" -nestling in the British bestseller list and his "Simply Painting" television series is shown on over 250 television stations worldwide. His second BBC ™ book was published in May 2001 and instantly sold out two print runs. He has made over 400 programs to date. These shows are broadcast across the world and Frank is a household name in the US, UK and Australia. Frank has also appeared on all the major chat shows in those countries. Frank has taught millions of people to paint using his have some more fun system through his books,TV programmes, videos ,seminars and classes. In August 2003 Frank launched his on line art college His series was recently launched in China and he is currently in the middle of producing a 13 part series based on his travels there. He has certainly come along way for someone without "the gift".

Have Some More Fun Well as I always say, someone has to show you how to start and it has to be simple. When I started to teach I found the one thing all beginners, and even some amateur painters had in common was a very disordered approach to their work. The very same applied to me when I started to paint. I was unsure where to start and when I did, I was jumping about the paper like a bucket of frogs! So I was determined to devise a system which students found easy to use and remember. The answer was to break every picture into four distinct parts. Once they did this their painting improved in leaps and bounds. However, as students left the class and did not paint again for some weeks or months, they seemed to forget what I had told them. So I racked my brains and found what I wanted to say in a simple unforgettable phrase: "Have Some More Fun. The first letter of the four words represents how to paint a picture e.g. HAVE - HORIZON First we draw our horizon line, always straight across the board. SOME - SKY Then starting, at the top of your picture and keeping above the horizon line, paint in the sky. MORE - MIDDLEGROUND Next just above the horizon line paint in a letter "M" to represent the mountains. FUN - FOREGROUND Last we paint the foreground. So by sticking to this formula both you and I can teach people to paint

Frank has receieed awards from schools colleges in United States, Europe and most recently in China

Frank is self taught artist and teacher and has helped thousands of people to paint through his classes books and TV seriees

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