Jordan K. Walker
PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Unlock Your Artistic Potential
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Mentoring Emerging Artists
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MEDIUMS: Oil | Graphite | Drawing
SPECIALTY: ✔ Composition ✔ Color ✔ Plein Air
I’ll mentor in foundational principles of representational painting, with a focus on landscapes and still life subjects. Though I am interested in working with emerging artists for my first mentorship, I believe that it is important to constantly revisit these principles and approach them in new ways. These principles include the following; compositional design, light and shadow, value structure, atmospheric and linear perspective, edges, color temperature, and color saturation.
My main medium is Oil, and I will provide insight into it’s working properties. I’ll discuss the differences between working on location en plein air and in the studio, and what these two working scenarios can achieve. I will also delve into specific considerations for painting landscapes, including a basic understanding of geology, ecology, and meteorology to better portray realistic natural environments. More advanced students in the emerging category might be interested in help painting specific subjects such as trees, clouds, and rocks, and I will be happy to provide this as these are my specialties. I will also be stressing the importance of drawing as a foundation, as well the ways thumbnail drawings and color studies can be created as preparation for more involved studio paintings.
In addition to these technical principles, we’ll study the works of artists I admire as well as some suggested by the students, and get excited about art history and the state of contemporary representational painting. I’ll also be able to provide some information about the business end of being an artist if my students are interested, including working with galleries, self promotion via social media, and traveling on painting trips as wall as for shows and exhibitions.
My approach to assigning homework will vary based on the group, but will usually involve exercises with a focus on repetition and the production of many small paintings. I think that we progress much faster if we create larger quantities of work while focusing on specific ideas and principles with each painting. Each month I will I will present a topic of focus, and ask students to create 5 – 20 small paintings or drawings focused on that topic. As the mentorship progresses, I may encourage students to spend time executing studies and a larger studio painting each month instead. I’ll also often assign suggested reading from a number of art books and online articles I find helpful as part of the monthly homework assignments. All of this is a rough idea of how I envision a mentorship, and it will be subject to change based on the interests and goals of my group.
Jordan’s EXPERTISE
Listed below are this Mentor’s specialty skills. Join this group if you want to grow in these areas.
Specialty: ✔ Composition ✔ Color ✔ Plein Air
Technical:
Color & Composition
Providing Art Critiques
Technique Demos
Studio Setup for Art Production
Marketing:
Social Media
Shows & Exhibits
“Mastrius is a perfect balance of accountability, community and fun.
It feels like family. Family that makes you a better you.”
~ Elizabeth, Emerging Artist
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If the group you’re interested in has a waitlist, you have the option to join another group to get started. When your group opens we can transfer you over.
Your Membership Includes (click here):
- Mentorship Session: Meet via video conference for a monthly 2-hour session with your Mentor and small group. You choose the mentor, we provide the group!
- Mid-Month Session: Meet via video conference for a 1-hour session with your small group and Navigator to connect, share progress, encouragement, and support.
- Weekly Events: Attend LIVE weekly events online, on hot topics like Finding Your Style, Composition & Critiques, plus master DEMOS. Access event recordings!
- MyStudio: Access your private online studio space equipped with business tools and Mentorship Session Recordings.
- Chat Group: Access your private online chat group to connect with your small group and Navigator (group facilitator) anytime.
- Discounts: Enjoy member discounts on LIVE and ON-DEMAND courses, art supplies, and more!
Emerging
Mentorship MembershipNext session: February 07, 2025
On the 1st Friday of every month
11:00 AM – 1:00 PM MST Fri
Not your timezone? Click below
MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jordan K. Walker is an award winning artist based in Eugene, Oregon. He is a member of the Oil Painters of America and the California Art Club. His work explores the complex and varied landscapes of the American West.
Jordan’s paintings have been shown in galleries and museums across the United States, including the National Museum of Wildlife Art, Steamboat Art Museum, CFD Old West Museum, Maryhill Museum of Art, and the Bowers Museum. Many of his paintings are held in private collections around the globe.
With painting gear in hand, Jordan hikes through the wild spaces of western North America and creates studies to better understand his surroundings. Intense examples of light and atmosphere, as well as a sense of the geological timescale of his favorite subjects are important elements in his work. He is continually drawn to the timeless drama of stormy skies, churning Pacific tides, steep alpine slopes, and ancient forests. In the studio, Jordan uses his studies and photographic reference gathered in the wild to compose immersive paintings. He strives to communicate the power and beauty of his subjects through the use of dynamic compositions, expressive brushstrokes, and unexpected color contrasts.
Jordan grew up in the ‘Ocean State” of Rhode Island, where he learned to appreciate the Atlantic coastline, eastern woodlands, and the many creatures that inhabited these ecosystems. Though time spent outdoors in nature was never as frequent as he would have liked, it was something he always treasured as a child. This fostered a lifelong interest in natural history, and engendered in him a desire to explore more far flung environments. Science fiction and fantasy novels provided a sense of escape, and he immersed himself the fantastic worlds of his favorite authors as well as many of his own creation.
To express his love for nature and his own imaginative creations, Jordan spent as much time as possible drawing. He filled dozens of sketchbooks throughout high school, and was bolstered by the encouragement of his parents and the enthusiasm of his peers. A family trip to Alaska during this time served as an introduction to the wonders of the western end of the continent, and left him eager to see more. By the end of this period he was certain of two things; he would go on to become a professional artist, and he would move west to explore the Pacific coast and the mountainous regions of North America.
Jordan graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration in 2016. During his time at RISD he learned a number of valuable lessons in conceptual thinking and composition design, and became enamored with oil paint as a medium. It was in a studio classroom that he met his life partner; fellow illustrator Emily Poole. Together they moved to Oregon shortly after graduation in search of vast wilderness and pristine ecosystems to explore.
He spent his first few years out of college fostering a career as a professional illustrator, creating rich imaginative scenes featuring strange creatures for a variety of publications. Though these subjects are still important to him, he was soon blown away by the sense of scale and history of the western landscape. Feeling a strong need to communicate his experiences and interpretations of the places he was seeing, he shifted his focus to spend more time painting the incredible tangible environments he has come to love.
