Visual Storytelling for Concept Artists with Nathan Fowkes
May 29th&30th, 2026
DAY
29-30 May
TIME
09:00
PLACE
PaloAlto Estudi Mariscal
BIO
Nathan Fowkes is a veteran artist in the entertainment industry with credits on 11 animated feature films, including The Prince of Egypt, Spirit, several projects within the Shrek universe, How to Train Your Dragon, The Legend of Puss in Boots, Rio 2, and Ferdinand. Nathan’s upcoming animated films are for Disney and Paramount Animation.
In addition, Nathan consults with game design studios to improve the quality of their theatrical presentations. He has worked with numerous clients, including Blizzard Entertainment, Infinity Ward, Disney Interactive, Riot Games, Ubisoft, Supercell, and Rovio. Nathan teaches painting and concept art design at Schoolism.com, and you can see his work on his website.
This will be a 2-day workshop with two topics per day, morning and afternoon. It will help you understand the depth of concepts like colour and composition with exercises guided and corrected by Nathan himself. Within the activities that we will be doing during these two days, a plein air session is included as well as an introductory masterclass by Nathan. Water and a coffee break are included too.
By purchasing a ticket to Nathan’s workshop, you are also getting yourself a free ticket to NonStop Barcelona’s 2026 Seminar.
SCHEDULE
Topic 1: Creating Compelling Stories Through the Design of Color and Light
- The theatrical design and development process.
- Organizing the complexities of color into engaging harmonies.
- Choosing color palettes that create a full variety of moods and emotional beats for storytelling.
- Color scripting to create a compelling narrative.
- Staging images through the design of light.
- Photoshop demo: building an image with color and light.
- Q&A.
Topic 2: Environment Design: The Creation of Extraordinary Places
- How to brainstorm environment concepts.
- The creation of mood, history and story through environment and location design.
- Creating emotional cues through the design of shape and line.
- Purposeful architecture design for storytelling.
- Designing 3D space in landscape and architecture.
- Photoshop demo: building an environment.
- Q&A.
Topic 3: Scene Composition for Storytelling
- Developing idea comps for storytelling.
- How to depict a clear story within challenging and complicated subject matter.
- Strategies for solving compositional problems quickly and effectively.
- Standing on the shoulders of giants; bringing the authority of the masters to modern concept art.
- Photoshop demo: building a composition.
- Q&A.
Topic 4: Outdoor Sketching in Watercolor and Gouache
- Improving your concept art painting and design through observation of nature.
- Step by step demo on location for traditional landscape sketching.
- Student painting time.
- Student critique to help refine the purposeful quality of their on site sketches.
- Q&A
MATERIALS:
Because landscape sketching is a very personal endeavor, any media is acceptable for this course. Nathan recommends watercolor (with white gouache) as a convenient sketching medium and he will be demonstrating with it.
These materials are his suggestions; but feel free to use any others that you prefer.
Watercolors (all Winsor & Newton brand unless otherwise noted)
- Permanent white designers gouache
- Winsor lemon
- Winsor yellow deep
- Yellow ochre
- Winsor orange
- Winsor red (or cadmium red)
- Permanent alizarin crimson
- Dioxazine violet
- French ultramarine blue
- Phthalo blue (Winsor blue greenshade)
- Phthalo green (Winsor green blueshade)
- Permanent sap green
- Leaf green (Holbein brand)
- Venetian red
- Raw umber
- Vandyke brown
- Ivory black
Brushes:
- Princeton flat #4350st sizes 1” and 3/4“Robert Simmons white sable #721 flat, sizes 1/2” and 1/4”
- Da Vinci Maestro 35 size 4 (or any good round sable watercolor brush)
Sketchbook/Paper
Watercolor suitable sketchbook, any size you prefer (Nathan’s demonstration sketches tend
to be about 4”x6”). Here are a few suggestions:
- Strathmore toned tan mixed media paper, 400 series.
- Heavy weight (heavy cardstock), acid free brown recycled paper. You can make your own sketchbook from this, many of my class demonstrations are on this paper.
- Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.
- Arches cold press 7”X10” watercolor paper block.
- Crescent #100 illustration board.
Additional Materials
- Prismacolor verithin pencil: orange and carmine red
- Masking tape
- Spray bottle (I use a small travel spray bottle filled with water)
- Water container (grocery store bottled water works fine)
- Water bin for cleaning brushes
- Alvin Heritage Palette
- Small hiking pack
*Materials are not included; please bring your own workstations with drawing software ready.
