In her basement studio, seasoned painter Nancy Lucas Williams is teaching students to change the way they view light, shapes and colors, one subject at a time.

In January, Williams opened the Master’s Atelier in Port Townsend. The school is based on the classical realism training of the Old Masters and the American Impressionist Boston School painters who trained in the French Academy of the late 19th century, Williams said. She trained at Atelier Lack in Minneapolis, one of the two centers of Classical Realism training in the country, and brings that approach to bear.

“I want to give other people the opportunity to change their worldview, in a sense, because then they have the tools to articulate their artistic vision,” said Williams. “Without that, it is like trying to do something with your hands tied behind your back.”

Williams’ first pupil at the school, Lucy Finch, said she has seen a tremendous impact on her work.

“Besides interpreting what the images are really telling me differently, I think my paintings and my drawings have become more three-dimsensional,” Finch said. “They have depth and more of a sense of presence than anything I have ever done before.”

Finch took an art class in college, but was unsatisfied by the results.

“They just kind of tell you to draw what you feel,” she said. “I never really learned to understand what I was seeing and how to make it come to life on the page.”

With Williams she has been training her eyes to better process the tremendous amount of information they take in.

“Our brain only knows how to process it in a way that we’ve learned growing up,” she said, fingers smudged with the charcoal she had just sharpened. “What Nancy has taught me to do is see the same information but interpret it differently.”

Finch has been working on a charcoal sketch of a face sculpture from the Roman-Greco period titled “Grace” since January. During that time, she said, she has grown more comfortable observing the subject in a new light.

“Instead of seeing the outline of the cast, I see the outline of the shapes and that changes everything,” Finch said. “I find I need to slow down a lot to really fully let the information get processed in my brain in this new way.”

Finch said learning on a static piece has been great because “Grace” is very patient.

“I can stand really close to it, I can touch it if I want.”

From static displays to live models

Williams has also been working with Finch on how to draw and paint live models.

“You spend half the day working from casts or still lifes and the other half working off a model,” Williams said.

“This is a great way to start because it really helps you simplify it and get down to the nitty gritty details,” Finch said. “And then, the live model challenges you take this type of approach and apply it a little bit faster.”

Whereas a static piece never changes, a model is never the same from moment to moment, Finch said.

“She is breathing. They slouch a little bit. They get hungry or tired. I saw one model start swaying the other day. It has a sense of life to it.”

Williams advocates drawing live models in the nude because that is the best way to teach how to draw the human form.

“You have to draw from a figure without clothes to learn the anatomy,” she said. “You just cannot learn anatomy if the person is wearing clothes.”

William’s own art is highly realistic, the heart of the techniques she is now imparting.

“With this training method, you can create figures that can tell a story in space,” she said.

Williams specializes in painting scenes from the Bible using live models.

“I work from life,” she said. “You get to interface with this incredibly sparkly (individual).”

Students who graduate from the Master’s Atelier can expect to be able to use such techniques to paint landscapes, figures, or still lifes, Williams said.

“You can do any kind of realistic painting you want. You could even do a slug.”

Finch said that while such paintings are realistic, they are not the same as a photograph.

“If you really look at it, there is something more going on in it than you could ever capture with a photograph. There is a sense of place and space.”

An invitation to arts students

Williams said she hopes to teach four to six students in the near future. If more apply for the four-to-seven-year program, she has plans to expand with a facility at Fort Worden.

“If I got enough, then I would move to another space where we could have natural lighting,” she said. “I would hire my former students to help me.”

For more information, visit themastersatelier.com.