The Reilly Papers: Order of the Blog

As blogs go, the latest posting will be the first one you see. However if you intend to embrace Reilly's program as he intended, it would be best to start at the beginning of the blog and work your way forward. Below is the list of published topics in roughly the same order that Reilly would have taught them in class. You can also use the search engine to find topics of interest.

Indoor Figure Painting:
Wash-In
Edges
Munsell Color Theory Basics
Reilly Palette: Neutrals
Reilly Palette: Palette of Convenience
The Color Note
Complexion
Lay-In
Halftone
Center Light
Highlight
The Effect
Basic Planes
Gradations and Progressions
Color Vibrations
Effect of Colored Lights
Lighting Basics

Outdoor Painting:
Introduction
Basic Days
Outdoor Theory: Sky Vault
Outdoor Theory: Planes
Outdoor Theory: Lighting
Sunlit Color
Landscape Palette
Sky & Clouds

Frank J. Reilly's teaching materials

For 28 years Frank Reilly was a prominent teacher at the Art Students League of New York. Succeeding George Bridgeman, he taught drawing and painting at the League until the early sixties. His classes were in such high demand the waiting list numbered in the hundreds, and at one point Reilly's classes accounted for half the League's tuition income. He eventually established the Frank J. Reilly School of Art not far from the League. Mr. Reilly developed a complete curriculum for teaching representational art. He left behind over a thousand pages of hand-written lecture notes. A selection of these documents are featured in this blog.

His program produced some of the most successful representational painters and illustrators of the era including Clark Hulings, James Bama, Michael Aviano, George Passantino, Robert Emil Schulz, Jerry Allison, Carl Hantman, Roger Kastel, and many more too numerous to mention. read more