Category Archives: Art Instructors

How to Draw Zombies

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Why do so many want to know How to Draw Zombies?

picture of finished peice

draw these zombies with Justin Cook

Zombies seem to be passing Vampires in popularity. I guess it’s about time to ad a “how to draw zombies” lesson, to our site. I wouldn’t be surprised if Stephanie Meyer were writing a love story between a walking corps and a beautiful young woman right now. I won’t read the book (my wife and daughters will) but I will definitely watch the movie, “Waking Dead”.

Our latest lesson is “Learn to Draw Cartoon Zombies” lesson by Justin Cook from the UK.

He shows you how to use Photoshop to sketch the zombies, ink them and then color them, or as he may say it, “colour them”.

how to draw zombies, inked.This course will teach you how to draw creepy, but cute zombies using Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom tablet or Cintiq monitor. He draws each of the five characters and shares his tips as a professional illustrator. The techniques he uses to “ink” can be appreciated even by professionals who might want to learn how to work digitally. Justin combines the pressure sensitive brush tools and the pen tool to paint a beautiful layer of “ink” with an emphasis on line variety. Then he teaches you how to use dedicated layers to add color and value. how to ink cartoon zombies

You don’t have to go to the UK to learn how to draw zombies from this master, thanks to FolioAcademy.com you can learn from an artist with a way cool accent. how to draw zombies, colored.

I just finished watching season three of “The Walking Dead” via NetFlix and I gotta say, Zombies are cool. I wouldn’t want to be one, raise one or fall in love with one. But as far as the world of the undead goes, zombies rock.  I’m just sayin. . .

NEW TUTORIAL! Learn how to use Photoshop

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I just finished a new video tutorial so you can Learn how to use Photoshop – a basic video series on how to get started in Photoshop.

We have been receiving requests over the past year to offer a video that would help the person who has never used Photoshop get started.

This tutorial is a focused on helping the student learn how to use Photoshop for painting in my Digital Painting in Photoshop tutorials Parts 1 & 2.

Instead of being a general beginner course I leave out all the photo editing specific tools and methods. You will learn how to use photoshop basic tools, settings, windows, and the controls that I use to make a painting in Photoshop.  I do share my Wacom tablet settings and opinions as well.  If you’re familiar with Photoshop you won’t need this video but will probably be fine jumping into parts 1 & 2 of Digital Painting in Photoshop.If you know anyone who has wanted to move from traditional mediums like acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, etc – this video might be just the thing to get them started.

how to use Photoshop for beginners

Check out a sample here.

If any of you have already purchased my Digital Painting in Photoshop parts 1 or 2 and would like this beginner course please just leave a comment below – make sure you leave your email address associated with your http://folioacademy.com/ account so I can look you up – and I’ll GIFT you this new tutorial for free! So you may want to purchase one or both of these Photoshop part 1 & Part 2 first, then get this FREE!One more thing – I do not paint in this new video but I do explain how to get around in photoshop in the most basic ways – and how to use many of the tools. Check it out at Folio Academy.

J. Kirk Richards

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We got him! Another celebrated artist has come to Folio Academy: J. Kirk Richards!

Richards is acclaimed for his spirited portrayals of the human form, both in oil paintings, and stunning sculptures.

J. Kirk Richards lives in Provo Utah with his wife – who is an artist as well. They also live some of the year in pastoral Redmond Utah, where they spend their days in their country art studio. While Richards is fond of a variety of art styles, his work is prized most by those who are interested in spiritually-themed artwork. He has won awards in juried shows throughout the country, and his work is illustrated in many magazines, books, and film productions. His work is even present in two PBS documentaries. J. Kirk Richards fuses the old and the new with his works of art; symbolism and metaphor, and an emphasis on lyric composition bring the human figure to light.

The new video “Portrait Painting with J. Kirk Richards,” Is available for streaming on Folio Academy. In this hour and forty minute video, Richards will teach you all you need to know if your interested in painting portraits. From mixing oil colors and attaining accuracy, to filling rectangles with great design and composition, Richards will take you step by step through painting a beautiful portrait, even teaching glazing and finishing along the way!

The skill level for this film is best for ages twelve and up.

New How to Photoshop Tutorial

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Whoooeee – I just finished my new How to Photoshop lesson!

This was a fun one and now I’m in the editing process for the video tutorial. As I mentioned before I’ll be giving this one away for FREE to anyone who has purchased my “Digital Painting in Photoshop” Videos from either my site or Folio Academy. It’s my way of saying thanks for all the support we’ve been getting and continue to get. I hope to be finished with the editing process in a week or so – I have a crazy hectic schedule at the moment.

Painting of a cat on a turtle done in Photoshop by Will Terry.
I’m tired – having fun but tired – I’m wearing lots of hats right now. Just trying to get the colors right – this piece is a challenge because there isn’t a lot of warm light which means almost everything needs to be on the cool side.


It’s slow going but I’ll get there. Just starting to add lighter values and colors and trying to figure out my color scheme as I go. One of the advantages of working digitally – testing colors on “throw-a-way” layers.


I’ve now added a “multiply” layer and started to work color into the background using the airbrush with the “texture” turned on in the brush pallet. The texture is a scanned texture I made with acrylic heavy gel medium and black and white acrylic paint.


I added the value on the ipad using the airbrush tool. I want to try to figure out where all the dark and light areas are going to be before I start adding color. This is crucial because once you get deep into the color process it’s hard to fix value problems.


Since I’ve switched over to Photoshop 5 I thought it might be nice to offer another tutorial. I’m going to give it away for FREE to those who have already purchased my “Digital Painting in Photoshop” video series – I’ll just update everyone’s account at Folio Academy with this new video series. So what I’m going to do is work on it a little each day and post my results here on my blog as I have a big project for National Geographic Kids Mag going on right now too.

This is a little sketch I did on my ipad with my finger – I’ve gone paperless by the way – I never intended to go green but when technology makes it easier to use than paper…

I’m calling this painting “Class System”. I find it ironic that often it’s the working class/poor who are much happier in life than the rich who control everything but still turn to drugs, alcohol, and suicide. Oh no – I actually have something to say? This is weird.

Anyway, I’ll try to post my results each day for a week or so.

BYU Instructor, Robert Barrett teaches How to Art

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We’re proud to have another wonderful artist, Robert Barrett at Folio Academy!

Robert Barrett is widely recognized as an accomplished painter, muralist, and illustrator, and his new video will be a great addition to our collection.

Working as a professor of visual art at Brigham Young University, Robert also had his work exhibited in numerous art shows. His worked has been shown in New York by prestigious groups such as the Society of Illustrators, the Directors Guild of America, and the National Arts Club. He has worked with many clients over the years, doing both illustration jobs, and books. Here are some he has worked with: Fawcett Books, McGraw Hill, Random House, Viking USA – with their imprints Puffin, Penguin, and Dial Books, Ideals Publishing, Thomas Nelson, Dell Publications, Double Day, Bantam, Clarion Books, Harper Collins, Concordia, and Deseret Book, as well as Outdoor Life, American History, Boy’s Life, American Legion, and McCall’s Magazines. Robert received a MA and MFA in painting attending the University of Iowa, and a BFA in painting from the University of Utah. He received the Karl G. Maeser Award for Teaching Excellence while at BYU, and more recently was chosen in 2010 as the “Distinguished Educator in the Arts” by the Society of Illustrator’s in New York City.

Roberts new course “Lift out Technique in Mixed Media.” Is now available at Folio academy. This course will teach the fundamentals of lift-out technique by following Robert Barrett as he completes a painting from start to finish. Beginning with instruction on the initial drawing stages, Robert will take you through opaque water color, oil washes, and finished details. Throughout the instructional video, Robert discusses the fundamentals – such as how to get a correct drawing, the importance of good shapes, and how to design compelling color.

Approximate run time 2.5 hrs – ages 16 and up

Professional Illustrator & Fine Artist, Greg Newbold

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We’re proud to introduce Professional Illustrator, Fine Artist, Greg Newbold to Folio Academy.

Greg began his career as an illustrator back in 1992. His developed his style using mostly acrylics and in that time has worked for some really impressive clients: Simon & Schuster, Random House, Heinz Foods, Harper Collins, Smuckers, Pilgrim’s Pride, Kleenex, Boy’s Life Magazine and Sony Pictures. He has also illustrated several children’s books, including The Barnyard Night Before Christmas (Random House 2007), The Touch of the Master’s Hand (Stellar Books 2007) and companion books Winter Lullaby and Spring Song (Gulliver Books/Harcourt 1998; 2001).

Greg has received many illustration honors from The Society of Illustrators (NY), Communication Arts, The American Institute of Graphic Arts, Graphis, The Los Angeles Society of Illustrators, Spectrum and others. In addition Greg also works on commission with his gallery work which is found in many private collections.

Greg lives with his family in Salt Lake City Utah and enjoys gardening, camping, and fishing in Utah’s back country.

In Greg’s Video series, Conquer Your Acrylic Demons, he shows many of his secrets in acrylic painting and shows you why you shouldn’t hate acrylics “the demons”. Many artists dislike acrylics because they behave so differently from oils. Through a step by step process Greg demonstrates the unique qualities that acrylics offer.

To watch a sample video of Greg’s course click here.

Folio Academy is finally here!!!

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I’m so proud and excited to announce our new creation – Folio Academy – online art lessons for everyone. You can check it out here. http://folioacademy.com

Back in October I was driving home from a long day teaching at UVU here in Utah and I heard a woman being interviewed by Dave Ramsey on the radio. I can’t tell you her name or the name of her book because I was talking back skeptically and sarcastically. The woman was saying that EVERYONE has something they do in their spare time or professional life that they could use to earn extra income. I was thinking, “I’m an illustrator and a teacher…what else could I possibly have time for??!!!” It bugged me for about a week when a thought popped into my head – I teach…why not teach to the video camera and then sell the videos on my website???…I love teaching and video editing has been a little hobbie – so I did.

And then I heard the voices – “this is a waste of time”…”who do you think you are anyway?”…”you could be watching Flintstones re-runs.” But I silenced the voices and forged ahead. In between a book project and some text book covers I grabbed 10 days where I basically didn’t sleep. At the end of that torture session I emerged gleaming with my finished product: “How To Illustrate Children’s Books“. I was so proud. It was a labor of love indeed. I should probably back up a bit – I was lucky in that I have a programmer living with me – my brother in law – and he assured me that he was up to the task of programming my website so that we could sell streaming videos. He would take care of the tech end and I would take care of making the videos.

Because I had to jump right back into illustrator mode I was only able to spend one day marketing my little video series. I contacted a few illustration bloggers like Angela Matteson – Angelato and children’s book blogs like Mark Mitchell’s How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator and invited them to do a blog post and give-a-way of my video series. They accepted as did about 4 other bloggers and from there I started selling my videos. Every now and then someone who purchased my videos liked them enough to do a blog post on them like Paula Pertile who used the photoshop concepts I put in my videos to achieve an unbelievable digital version of her colored pencil drawings. I know I’m leaving a lot of wonderful people out but there are too many to mention…but Sue from Moab has been a great supporter!

Fast forward through a few more video series and I started getting asked by fellow artists about how my videos were selling and if I thought it was worth doing. Of course I told them I did but the problem most artists have is the programming side of selling videos from their own site. I put my head together with a few artist friends and together we decided to make a site available to artists of every kind. One of my illustrator friends said, “Can you imagine what it would have been like to have a resource like this when we were going to school?”

Artist Greg Newbold setting up for his video shoot

So our goal is to find the best artists from around the world and see what they have to teach. We’ve partnered with several local video studios like Amber Media Pro and Provo Creative and are inviting artists to come into the studio for a day and do their thang in front of the cameras. Of course not every artist can get to us so we’ll also offer their videos if they can produce them themselves. We’re of course small now but we plan to release one new video series per week. Over time there’s no telling where this will go.

So, woman on the radio talking about monetizing your hobbie whoever you are – thank you! – and my apologies for doubting you.