Flagship program · The Art Institute
A sixteen-week Saturday studio in digital art, taught with the same tools and workflows working professionals use. Students build skill in drawing, light, color, and digital production, and finish with a page of their own in a published book.
Format
Saturday weekend studio
Length
16 weeks
Sessions
10:30 am to 1:30 pm
Tuition
$4,800
*Scholarships available
Why this exists
A lot of art instruction stops at technique. Students learn to render a sphere or copy a style, but never the full process that turns an idea into a finished, professional page.
The Art Institute teaches that whole process. Students work the way professionals do, in Clip Studio Paint, with layered files, non-destructive workflows, flatting, holds, and rendering. They apply it to real pages, from first sketch to finished art.
We don’t use AI prompts and we don’t teach shortcuts. We teach why every line and every color matters.
The curriculum
Each unit builds on the one before it. Here is what students study, what they practice, and what they can do by the end.
Gesture and construction, human and creature anatomy, shape language and silhouette reading, perspective (one-, two-, and three-point), and staging a scene in space, all drawn in Clip Studio Paint from the first session.
What you practice
By the end: Take an idea from rough construction to clean, confident line art.
Value judged apart from hue: the value scale, notan and three-value studies, the light family and the shadow family of a form, grouping values into a few large shapes, and sharp, firm, soft, and lost edges, all worked in grayscale.
What you practice
By the end: Build a clear value structure in grayscale, with every edge chosen on purpose.
The professional pipeline in Clip Studio Paint: file setup, preparing scanned line art, selections and fills, flatting, masks, adjustment layers, layer modes, brush economy, and non-destructive workflows.
What you practice
By the end: Produce a clean, well-organized file that a professional could pick up and continue.
How light behaves (key, fill, rim, and ambient light), planes and the terminator, the shadow family (form, core, cast, and occlusion), falloff and material response, and where highlights go, first in grayscale and then over flat colors.
What you practice
By the end: Light a subject convincingly, from a grayscale study to a full-color render.
Color theory across value, saturation, and hue, put to work as storytelling: color scripting, atmosphere and mood, emotional keying, and continuity across a sequence, moving from coloring single images to deliberate visual narrative.
What you practice
By the end: Build a short color-scripted sequence that carries emotion and reads clearly.
Finishing work to a professional standard: the inks, flats, holds, and rendering progression; page proofing; print prep; and assembling a body of work for college and art-school review.
What you practice
By the end: Leave with finished, high-resolution pieces ready for review.
From the studio
Five short lessons recorded at the instructor’s desk in Clip Studio Paint: one real comic page taken from a raw scan to finished flats, one step per lesson. It is the same production pipeline students learn in the studio.
Taught by Ethan Alvarée, who leads the Art Institute and colors comics professionally.
Free lesson seriesHow to Color Comics in Clip Studio Paint5 lessonsPlay allOpens on YouTube in a new tab. The lessons are short and build on each other, so start at the top of the list.
Guest mentors
Each cohort includes feedback sessions and workshops with artists, colorists, and publishers who work in comics and illustration today. Students get their work critiqued by people who do this for a living.
Colorist / Lead Instructor
Comic book colorist — Knuckles Omnibus Vol. 1, The Shadow Files, and Scott Shaw's Sonic Days, where they colored every page Scott Shaw drew. Teaches the Art Institute's Saturday studio personally: drawing fundamentals, light and color, and the production pipeline that turns a student's page into a printed hardcover.
Professional Colorist
Working colorist since 2011, with credits at DC, Image, Vault, IDW, and Dark Horse. Teaches digital coloring online to thousands of students. Specializes in lighting, mood, and rendering workflow.
Penciller / Animator / Writer
Award-winning artist with 50+ years experience. First artist on Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog series (1992). Co-creator on The Simpsons comics and The Flintstones comics. Co-founded San Diego Comic-Con in 1970.
Author / Illustrator / Publisher
Wrote and illustrated Sonic the Hedgehog comics from 1993–2006, including every issue of Knuckles the Echidna and the Princess Sally miniseries. Has worked on Star Trek, King of the Hill, and Zelda. Founder of Floating Island Productions.
The capstone
Recent hardcovers from Floating Island Productions: Knuckles Omnibus Vol. 1, Scott Shaw’s Sonic Days, and The Shadow Files.
Floating Island Productions, founded by Ken Penders, releases hardcover editions of his original stories, restored, recolored, and re-lettered for a new generation of readers.
As a capstone, every student is invited to contribute a finished page to a real book, created with the professional mentors’ guidance. Each contributor is credited by name alongside the professionals on the team, and receives a copy of the hardcover when it prints.
Seeing your name in a real book is exciting. What you learn getting there matters even more.
What students need
A tablet computer that the student draws on directly, with a keyboard and a pressure-sensitive pen, is required. A regular laptop, such as a MacBook, used with a drawing tablet that has no screen of its own is not a substitute. Recommended:
Already have a smaller or older tablet, or another setup where the student draws directly on a screen? Ask the instructor before buying.
Full hardware requirements →Clip Studio Paint, the industry-standard tool for comic, manga, and illustration production. PCI provides licenses for enrolled students.
None required. Students at every level start from the fundamentals and build up. Those with prior experience tend to move faster.
Optional
Students who want academic credit for the Art Institute may elect to earn it through High Bluff Academy, a WASC-accredited private high school in Rancho Santa Fe. Credit is requested from and granted by High Bluff Academy. Contact their office for requirements and details.
Cohorts are intentionally small. Reach out and we’ll walk you through the next start date, the curriculum, and what your student needs to begin.
