New Art Classes at Abernathy Focus on Observation and Proportion

Teaching with Empathy and Focus

When artist John Horne discusses teaching drawing, he rarely begins with technical details. Instead, he starts by focusing on people. Over the years, in classrooms and studios across Metro Atlanta, Horne has discovered that the anxieties students bring — fear of failure, fear of not being "good enough," and fear of never getting it right — remain consistent across generations. “Only the faces change,” he says. According to Horne, the role of an instructor is not to rank talent or judge outcomes, but to meet students where they are and help them articulate their goals.

This philosophy underpins Horne’s two new classes at the Sandy Springs Abernathy Arts Center: Figure Drawing: All Levels and Portrait Drawing: All Levels. Both classes will launch next week. Horne describes his classes as mixed-level by design, allowing for a dynamic learning environment.

Training on Patience and Process

In both his youth and adult classes, Horne emphasizes habits over shortcuts. He encourages students to commit to daily practice, even if it’s just 20 minutes, and to approach their work with honesty and integrity. Progress, he explains, does not happen on a single timeline.

His classes often resemble what he calls a “little red schoolhouse” environment: beginners, intermediate artists, and advanced students working side by side. This diversity of skill levels is intentional. During end-of-class critiques, Horne has observed students absorbing insights not only from him, but also from each other, learning to see mistakes, corrections, and possibilities in real time.

Mistakes, in Horne’s classes, are not setbacks. “Only by failing and resolving the error will you learn,” he says, framing mistakes as essential data points rather than evidence of inadequacy.

Classical Techniques with a Practical Approach

While Horne’s instruction draws from classical traditions associated with artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Albrecht Dürer, his focus is practical rather than reverential. Grids, proportion, perspective, value studies, and composition are tools. Copying master works or working from photographs, he argues, is not derivative when used to train the eye.

“The single most effective tool in the artist studio is the artist’s eyes,” Horne says. He urges students to spend at least half their working time observing the subject, not the paper — an emphasis on seeing accurately before attempting interpretation.

That discipline carries across different modes: working from life, from still life, from imagination, and from photography. Each method, he says, develops a different kind of visual judgment and confidence.

A Legacy Measured in People

Since 1999, Horne’s students have gone on to teach at local art centers, direct art programs, and attend respected institutions such as Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons School of Design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, CalArts, and SCAD. He does not describe these outcomes as personal achievements, but as evidence of sustained mentorship.

“I look. I see. I understand. I apply,” he says, distilling the mindset he encourages students, and himself, to adopt repeatedly. Learning, in his view, never ends. Neither does teaching.

As Horne begins this next chapter at Abernathy Arts Center, the goal remains unchanged: to make the classroom a place where curiosity outweighs fear, where rigor coexists with generosity, and where artists learn not just how to draw — but how to see.