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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.

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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.

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.

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."

Above are some examples of the illustrations done by the faculty that think illustration is best learned from illustrators. Here is a list of Illustration Academy and Visual Literacy Program faculty that have images above: Mark English, Gary Kelley, Anita Kunz, Chris Payne, C.F. Payne, Jon Foster, George Pratt, Sterling Hundley, John English, and Brent Watkinson.

This could be the sort of website an illustrator could use as a type of illustrator training course. An illustrator will be learning from illustrators about illustration. This type of illustration school is about illustrators teaching illustration as a type of illustration course, a design course, an illustrator class, and even digital painting. The Visual Literacy Program could be thought of as an extension of The Illustration Academy. Visual Literacy in this sense is just being about having a certain amount of literacy in a visual sense, in terms of illustration in particular. The Illustration Academy is an immersion Illustration School, and an Illustration School is exactly what The Illustration Academy is all about. Have you ever wanted to learn illustration from actual illustrators? That is exactly what the Illustration Academy and The Visual Literacy Program is all about!

Digital painting in the work of illustrators illustrating is now more common than ever. As a matter of fact, most illustrators now use some aspect or type of what is referred to as digital painting in their illustration work. It is not uncommon for traditional illustrators doing traditional illustration to use some digital process while doing or finishing their illustration. One aspect of digital painting in their work that sometimes goes unnoticed is to scan their work and make a digital image of it. After it is imported to a digital program, a filter or digital wash can be applied to lend certain effects to the finished illustration. Almost invisible to everyone except those that also use digital painting programs, this is just one example of illustrators using some aspect of digital painting in their work. Illustrators and illustration are always evolving and have come a long way with the use of digital technologies and digital painting programs.