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Who We Are

The Visual Literacy Online Program is powered by the award winning Illustration Academy faculty. The Illustration Academy has taken a unique approach to training professional illustrators of today as well as those looking to become the professionals of tomorrow.

You will be hard pressed to find an online learning program with such a professional level of instruction. You will learn from artists such as Mark English, Gary Kelley, George Pratt, Sterling Hundley, C.F. Payne, Anita Kunz, Jon Foster and many more.

What Is It

The Visual Literacy Online Program is for both the serious student and the professional artist. This program provides access to all of the Illustration Academy lessons taught by the world renowned illustrators and painters of today.

The program is about professionals training professionals. It's about real-world training that makes you a better picture maker. This program will help you to develop your portfolio whether you are in school or a working professional. Whether you are entering an Art and Design college, or pursuing a career as a professional, the Visual Literacy Program will help you to obtain scholarships or better clients as a working professional by making your portfolio the best it can be.

Illustrators practice different kinds or "categories" of illustration. Editorial, book, institutional, advertising and concept art, are just a few of the types of illustration that art directors and art buyers look for. Most illustrators don't simply do one kind, but usually have a so-called specialty in which they do most of their work.

The Visual Literacy Program does not specialize in any one particular area of expertise, but the knowledge based is shared between most or all aspects and categories of illustration. This is not only because The Illustration Academy and the Visual Literacy Program has such a diverse range of facutly, but because the programs are rooted in drawing and picture making skills in general. A good image is a good image, whether it is used for illustration or as a piece of fine art. (The terms illustration and fine art are worth an entire discussion on their own).

Illustration has been around since the cave paintings of Lascaux, France. An illustration, properly made by the illustrator, seeks to clarify, or show more clearly the idea or subject being talked or written about, perhaps in a book or magazine. The actual definition in some dictionaries of illustration is "to clarify."

anita kunz illustration Mark English Illustration Gary Kelley Illustration George Pratt Illustration Sterling Hundley Illustration Chris Payne Illustration C. F. Payne Illustration
An online illustration class or illustration school is not exactly what The Visual Literacy Program tries to do. Illustration course or illustrator class is more like what we have in mind, or even to desribe it as illustrator training. Digital painting is involved as well, as some of our illustrator faculty from The Illustration Academy utilize digital painting and digital illustration in their work. Illustration is their life and life style, not just a job or something they do as a past time. An illustration course or illustration school is not the design of this illustrator course as much as it is meant to help a illustrator training to become better at picture making. Digital painting is also utilized by some members of the Illustration Academy faculty in our online illustration course, or illustration school, as some people call it. Design is another aspect of The Visual Literacy Program, and The Illustration Academy. Digital painting goes hand in hand in this illustrator class and the illustrator training developed over th past 15 years. An illustration school? An illustration course? Illustrators and illustration training has been part of the Illustration Academy and The Visual Literacy Program since it began.

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