Named after the French word for studio, atelier schools are where students immerse themselves in an intensive series of training in realism. For months on end, they draw and paint repeatedly, often the same subject—usually still lifes or human models—with a focus on detail.
Along with most of the world, Jonathan Noon had some time on his hands during the pandemic, so he decided to seriously explore his interest in drawing and painting. Up to that point in his life, he had set art aside for other pursuits. But, in 2021, he and his wife Katie moved from Scottsdale, Arizona, to Boston, Massachusetts, to see how far he could take his interest in drawing.
Noon had an affinity for drawing as a young boy growing up in San Diego, California, but never seriously pursued it until he was 36 and enrolled at the Academy of Realist Art in Boston, where he studied in the atelier method and zeroed in on the kind of painting he admired most. “There’s no shortage of things that interest me, and I always put my time toward a different interest, but I never prioritized this skill I knew I had,” he says. “I needed to cultivate it a bit more. A lot of that was probably because I had no idea how I would ever create a career out of creating art.”
Read the full article in the September/October 2026 issue.
Farewell Kiss
oil
9″ by 12″
Warrior Poet
oil
24″ by 33″
