New Museum Los Gatos aims to inspire, illuminate, and instruct. Gabriel Coke’s atelier is a revitalization of a tradition popularized during the Renaissance. His curriculum is designed to prepare students for professional art study through a well-rounded education mastering the basics: still life, landscape, portraits, and drawing.

Some of his youngest students’ paintings hang among the masterpieces of the visiting instructors in the gallery. A collection of self-portraits, for example, showcases incredible realism and richly reflective imagination. Gabe took his students’ photos until each had one they liked. Then, he helped them streamline their invention of symbols, colors, and illustrations to tell their life story. “It’s so important when you’re working with young kids, because they still have imagination, to let their imagination have a voice,” Gabe emphasizes. His mission is to teach the foundational skills that promote that confidence.

On the lower floor of the museum, where Gabe holds his classes, each workstation is designed to set students up for success. Lamps wrapped in cones of black tape focus light away from the eyes, shining directly on the easel without polluting the subjects to be drawn. At each station, Gabe has placed an egg. “The egg is a metaphor for something more complicated,” he explains. “I don’t want them to ever feel like they can’t do something. Almost everyone can draw an egg, but I explain everything that’s going on to make it look realistic.”

From there, a student of any age can draw something more complicated. “It’s really not me,” Gabe promises. “If you’re born with talent and ability, you’re never going to lose it.”

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