My painting "Sleepwaters" at Sotheby's NY Auction with Art Renewal Salon

My painting Sleepwaters will be part of the Art Renewal Centre Salon auction at Sotheby’s in New York.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2026/contemporary-realism-important-21st-century-works 


Available during the auction or for pre-purchase:

The Art Renewal Center® (ARC) is proud to present nearly 100 award winning works from 20 countries from the 17th/18th International ARC Salons, hosted by Sotheby’s New York: 945 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021, from July 17 - July 27, 2026. 47 of these works are being offered for sale in an online auction hosted on Sothebys.com.

We are allowing interested individuals to purchase works in advance for those who do not wish to compete for the works in the auction. Please contact Angela.jones@artrenewal.org for enquiries. 

Having received over 8,500 entries from 87 countries over the course of the 17th and 18th competitions, the International ARC Salon is the largest, most influential, and far-reaching competition for Contemporary Realism in the world, with over $130,000 in cash awards in each salon and international recognition through partnerships with prestigious magazines, galleries, and museums with live exhibitions and a strong online presence.

About the artwork:

Sleepwaters weaves together imagery of falling into and waking from sleep.  Hypnagogia, the transitional state as we fall asleep, is a fascinating and psychologically potent state, as the mind sharpens, softens and metamorphoses around the sensations of the body.  At the edge of sleep, impossible notions can seem quite real, and can entwine with anxieties, blissful relaxation, erotic feelings or sadness.

Sleepwaters suggests falling into and waking from sleep.  At the edge of sleep, the hypnagogic state, impossible notions can seem quite real, and can entwine with anxieties, blissful relaxation, erotic feelings or sadness.  We begin to sink into the streams and mists of dream.


Oil on Linen

Signed 'BRETON' lower right

Oil on linen

Canvas: 24 by 48 in.; 61 by 121.9 cm

Framed: 28 by 52 in.; 71.1 by 132.1 cm

Executed in 2025

Structure to Soul life drawing returns Sunday 22nd Feb 2026

The idea of these sessions is to provide a calm and focussed space conducive to the practise of drawing the portrait and figure, with 2 hour, well lit poses from life.

 

We begin with my demo of some anatomical structure and drawing process to highlight the core skills we all need to keep coming back to. You can think of these demos as “cheat codes for drawing” as they are all about the common errors, and effective strategies that can cut through the noise to the heart of things.

 

Then we start the pose, and I draw alongside you so you can see what I do and we all learn from seeing each other’s work. I give a round of feedback about midway through so you can get some further feedback if you want it. Without me hovering over your shoulder.

 

Why Pursue Art in the Age of AI?

Why Pursue Art in the Age of AI?

What the machines reveal about what makes us irreplaceable

I've been thinking a lot lately about a question many artists are wrestling with: Why keep making art when AI can generate images in seconds?

I perversely enjoy when technology real-worlds questions of philosophy. And I think it actually is a fair question, because while we might intuitively dismiss the question as ignorant, it can be hard to specify the answer.

And I think the answer reveals something profound, not just about art, but about what it means to be human.

The Gift of the Mirror

AI has done something unexpected: it has shown us, with startling clarity, what actually matters about art making.

Just as photography once forced painting to confront its true strengths (painters could no longer compete on mere documentation and had to dig deeper into expression, composition, and meaning) AI is doing the same thing now, but more radically.

The machines can simulate surfaces brilliantly. They can remix styles, generate compositions, and produce technically impressive images. What they cannot do, what they will never be able to do, is become something through the making.

And that's the heart of it.

The Transformation That Matters

When you spend hundreds of hours learning to draw the figure, your brain rewires. Your capacity to see changes. You begin to perceive rhythms, weights, tensions that were invisible before. The discipline doesn't just produce drawings: it transforms the one doing the drawing.

This is what I call embodiment: the process by which a skill merges with the self. The technique hybridizes with the psyche. You don't just know anatomy in an abstract way - it becomes part of your perceptual apparatus, stored in your hands, your eyes, your intuitive sense of form.

Using AI to generate an image skips all of this. It produces output without experience. It has no body to remember with, no struggles that shape its vision, no midnight hours of doubt that deepen its empathy. Which means you, as an individual miss out on becoming something new by your blood, sweat and tears. You miss out on being part of the community of people who can instantly recognise someone who knows how to draw, who gets it.

And audiences too can sense this to some extent. We are drawn to work that carries the weight of genuine human experience: the evidence of someone having wrestled with form, with meaning, with their own limitations and breakthroughs. I suspect that going forward this sense will become more important than ever as the artificial pervades the world. We will want more than ever the imperfect excellence achieved by a human above standard-issue artificial perfection.

 

The Slow Work

Here's something else AI reveals: the value of patience itself.

We live in a culture of passive consumption, of infinite scrolling, of dopamine hits delivered on demand. Everything is optimized for speed, for ease, for the next quick fix. Against this backdrop, the decision to spend months, sometimes years, on developing a single painting or even just a few hours on a drawing is almost countercultural.

Making art demannds a different relationship with time. It requires sitting with discomfort, working through the inevitable disasters, returning day after day to something that may be fighting you at every turn. There's no algorithm to make it easier, no shortcut through the messy middle of a difficult piece.

This patience, this resilience, becomes its own form of cultivation. You learn to tolerate frustration. You develop the capacity to hold a vision even when the work looks terrible. You build the kind of focused, sustained attention that our fragmented culture desperately needs but rarely values.

And here's the paradox: this slow, difficult work often yields the deepest satisfaction. Not the quick pleasure of a like or a share, but the earned sense of having struggled with something real (and in physical reality) and emerged changed. The painting that nearly defeated you but finally came together teaches you something prompting cannot.

In an age of instant generation, slowness becomes radical. Patience becomes a form of resistance. The artist who spends six months on a single figure is asserting something profound about what it means to be human: that we are not mere consumers, but makers who transform ourselves through sustained engagement with difficulty.

 

Seeds for the Eye

I think of artworks as seeds.

Apparently inert, deceptively material, they hold deep potential. A painting is a compression of hundreds of hours of feeling, reflecting, shaping. The artist's research, choices, and intuition (all crafted by years of practice) can reach into the consciousness of the viewer in an instant.

While a novel or play takes time to unfold, a well-crafted image can transmit movement, life, form, and light in seconds. And the viewer experiences not just the subject, but the way of being that created it. This is the magic: the artist's state of mind during those hundreds of hours somehow seeps into the work and is read by the viewer. The viewer knows that are there, that they are unique and imperfect.

AI cannot plant these seeds. It has no interior landscape to compress, no journey to share, no genuine struggle with mortality and meaning to transmit.

 

What We Actually Value

The rise of AI reveals a truth we perhaps always knew but can now see clearly: what we value in art isn't just functionality or surface appearance.

We value the interiority of the maker. We value the evidence of a mind that has grappled with existence, a hand that has learned through failure and persistence, a vision that has been earned through disciplined cultivation.

When you look at a Rembrandt self-portrait or a Rodin sculpture, you're not just seeing technical mastery. You're witnessing the trace of a human consciousness that wrestled with light and shadow, with aging and dignity, with the mystery of embodied existence. That struggle is in the work. It cannot be faked.

AI will replace many functions, and this is actually liberating. It shows us that what truly matters about being human is not our utility but our experience of ourselves and the world. Robots might become workers, but they will never satisfy our need for connection to another being with an interior world relatable to our own.

 

The Path Forward

So what does this mean for artists in the age of AI?

It means doubling down on what makes us irreplaceable: embodied practice. The cultivation of genuine skill through hours of disciplined work. The development of an interior landscape rich enough to be worth sharing by compressing into visual form. The courage to wrestle with meaning in an age of easy surfaces.

This isn't a retreat into nostalgia. It's a recognition that the deepest value art offers has always been relational and human. AI hasn't diminished this: it has made it more visible, more precious.

The world needs artists now more than ever. Not for the mere function of producing pretty pictures (machines can do that), but because it matters that human beings continue to know what it is like to be an artist, to strive to live up to the examples of the greats of the past.

We are witnesses, interpreters, meaning-makers. We compress lived experience into forms that can inspire, console, and enlarge others.

This is the nobility of our craft: we throw our light into the void, despite our fragility, and the ceaseless horrors and corruption continuing to be reported in the news, and the apparent futility that can creep up on us. And in doing so, we redeem something, not only for ourselves, but quietly, gradually, for the world.

 

The Invitation

If this resonates with you, if you feel called to this path of embodied artistic practice, know that you're not alone.

My teaching is built around this philosophy: that genuine skill, cultivated through disciplined practice and integrated with a searching, meaningful way of seeing, is what creates art that matters. Whether in my Form, Gesture, Anatomy course or my weekly drawing sessions, I'm interested in helping artists develop not just technical facility, but the kind of embodied knowledge that can't be automated. Because no machine has your hands, and can experience for you what it is like to sense the forms of nature through the embodied skill of a pencil or brush.

I've also just updated my portfolio to be better organised and include recent work: pieces that represent this philosophy in action. Lots of new life studies of portraits and figures in there now too.

You can view it at scottbreton.art/gallery.

 

For those in Brisbane, I have several upcoming opportunities to study together:

  • My FGA (Form, Gesture, Anatomy) course integrates artistic anatomy with classical life drawing. Starting April 11th at the Royal Queensland Art Society, Petrie Terrace, Brisbane

 

  • As a part of the RQAS Workshop Festival, I will be running a tutored life drawing session on Wednesday 25th March 6:30-8:30pm.
    In this 2 hour class, I will provide you the two core approaches I use to rapidly improve your ability to see in spatial, anatomical and gestural essentials. This will give a good overview of what I teach in longer figure drawing courses and provide you with actionable drills you can take away and practise by yourself.

 

  • Weekly "Structure to Soul" portrait and figure drawing sessions will return very soon likely around the 22nd Feb (tbc). These sessions alternate portrait and figure long poses with anatomy demos and individual feedback

 

For those elsewhere in the world, the FGA course is available online, and I offer small group and individual mentoring sessions as well.

Details at scottbreton.art/tuition

The machines have given us a gift: they've shown us what we are not. We are not mere processors of visual information. We are embodied beings who transform ourselves through disciplined practice, who compress meaning through conscious struggle, who connect to each other through the evidence of genuine interior experience.

This is why we make art. This is why it matters. And this is why, in the age of AI, the artist's path is more vital (and more human) than ever.

FGA in-person course 2026; and new free tutorials and demos page

FGA 2026: The Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course for 2026 will start 11th April

10 X Saturdays integrating artistic anatomy with classical life drawing.

Details and enrol here

It will be held at The Royal Queensland Art Society, Petrie Terrace, Brisbane

10% Early Bird Discount until 4th of January 2026!

An integrated artistic anatomy and figure drawing course - the in-person form of my online flagship Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course

 

Free tutorials and class demo studies on my new “Structure to Soul” Instagram page

New 2026 Art Calendars by Jennifer Allnutt!

2026 Limited Edition Art Calendars by Jennifer Allnutt!

These art calendars are a4 spiral bound at the top edge and all the artwork displayed in the calendar is from 2025. 

Included is a small art biography and artwork themes plus a different art print for each month.
There are large spaces to make notes of important dates and birthdays with key holidays marked for each month as well.

Order here!

Only a small, limited edition quantity are printed and once they’re sold out that’s it, so don’t miss out!

Most orders are shipped promptly but please allow up to two weeks for processing, packing and shipping. Orders placed after the 17th December can’t be guaranteed to arrive in time for Christmas!

Order here!

https://jennyallnutt.bigcartel.com/product/2026-art-calendar

(PS I didn’t get a chance to make one this year myself)

27 demo videos live, 2 life drawing sessions remain for 2025 !

We are now up to 27 videos in the resources section of the FGA course!

These focus on figure drawing process, head and feature construction, edge control and investigations of master works.

Login to access here for as low as $5 per month: https://scottbreton.art/resodemos

These are recorded from the beginning of in-person sessions I teach at the Royal Queensland Art Society in Petrie Terrace, Brisbane, Australia.

At these sessions we usually do one week portrait and one week figure, here are some of my recent drawings from these sessions (where I draw alongside the class and offer one round of feedback midway through if desired.)

We have our last two sessions for the year this sunday and the next. It is has worked out that both will be figure sessions with Clare and India.

Still plenty of spaces, book in here:

https://scottbreton.square.site/product/draw-with-scott-casual-weekly-drawing-lesson-portrait-one-week-figure-long-pose-the-next/27?category_id=4&cp=true&q=false&sa=false&sbp=false

After that I will be taking a break from teaching for the rest of the year due to other commitments.

I’ll be uploading studies and selected clips to my new “Structure to Soul” Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/structuretosoul/

Last 7 life drawing sessions of 2025! And... 2 free demos of the 22 class videos now available...

Well we are wrapping up the life class for 2025!

7 sessions to go, ending on the 26th of October. There are still a few places on this Sunday the 28th September!

Dates and enrolments are here

 

My recent life studies:

Below are some of my studies from these sessions.

Free Demos

Here are a couple of the recent demos (20 more available in the demo page in the FGA course resources section).

The first demo is based on “The Age of Bronze” by Rodin:

https://youtu.be/MPtVzj1gp2Y?si=bhFANOxqtvC6VolH

The next video goes through the structure of the lips:

https://youtu.be/npqic5cisio?si=M7oAv-PdbLfRuTv-

These plus 20 other videos of demos from the sessions are available for free to anyone who has purchased access to the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course. I still have a few more to upload and there will be more to come in October:

https://scottbreton.art/resodemos

Access the full Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course for as little as $5 per month, cancel anytime. Or buy outright for permanent access for $40.

https://scottbreton.art/fga#signup

 

Brisbane Portrait Prize

For those in Brisbane, I am giving a free artist talk at the Brisbane Portrait Prize on the 4th of October at 10:30am (At the State Library gallery - near QAGOMA)

Details here: https://brisbaneportraitprize.org/public-programming/#calendar-e6438c62-250f-48e4-a025-bfb3f18d6713-event-edea2ecb-5e17-4ac5-a432-b5c12b0ea95e

View the painting here

The life class might soon be a dead class - shall we keep it alive?

I’ve been quite excited about the 2 hour portrait and long pose tutored life sessions I’ve been running at the lovely Royal Queensland Art Society studios at Petrie Terrace, Brisbane.

After a 25 minute drawing demo that changes each week and relates to the portrait or life session we are doing, we set up the pose - you can watch how I approach things if you wish, or get into your own drawing from the start. I offer a round of feedback midway through, if you want it. There’s music, herbal teas, chocolate biscuits and now often wine!

Book at: https://scottbreton.square.site/product/draw-with-scott-casual-weekly-drawing-lesson-portrait-one-week-figure-long-pose-the-next/27?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=4

Recent demo drawing from one of these classes

 

Plus, This is the cheapest tutored life session you will find in Brisbane.

See many of the demos for free here: https://scottbreton.art/dws

 

These sessions offer regularity, flexibility and I deliver a lot of the same content as the Form, Gesture, Anatomy course but in a novel and evolving format that ties it all closer to my own practise.

 

In short, I think they are probably some of the most effective and high value lessons I’ve ever offered.

 

One of my recent session drawings

However they are dying. In July I made about $25AUD per hour running these sessions. Far less than what the venue or the model makes. But still workable. In August, I made about $3AUD per hour. Not really sustainable… and pretty discouraging.

 

Free and quick ways to help us keep these sessions alive:

  1. Leave me some stars! as quick as an Uber review https://g.page/r/CaC8yMD_pT2QEBM/review

  2. Tell a friend - it is hard to reach people with the noise of the internet. If you have found my classes useful, please share this with someone interested in traditional art skills.

  3. Follow my new tuition oriented Instagram page - I’ll be adding new content regularly such as short reels and my drawings https://www.instagram.com/fromstructuretosoul/

 

For those of you online, I’m videoing the demo part and sharing my drawings. For those with access to the Form, Gesture, Anatomy Course, I’ll be continuing to include absolutely all demo videos in the resources section. https://scottbreton.art/fga#res

 

I don’t usually ask for help, but I really think it would be sad if these sessions died.

To the regulars: I deeply appreciate your support and your community, and your ongoing focussed energy in this difficult art. It’s great to see you learning and developing your fluidity and drawing beside you.

To anyone thinking about attending: Jump in now, September might be the last chance to attend a “Draw with Scott” session!

Book at: https://scottbreton.square.site/product/draw-with-scott-casual-weekly-drawing-lesson-portrait-one-week-figure-long-pose-the-next/27?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=4

Mysteries of the nose video, September life class enrolments now open!

Mysteries of the nose! Here is a recent set of highlights from one of the demos at my “Draw with Scott” sessions focussed on the planes of the nose and surrounding facial bones and tissues:

I’ve been continuing to upload videos from my biweekly demos, available free at https://scottbreton.art/dws

I’ll continue to share bite-size one or two minute videos with you.

Going forward I’m going to be adding any new videos I shoot in classes to the Form, Gesture, Anatomy online book resources section: https://scottbreton.art/fga#res

Upcoming demos will broadly follow the logical sequence of this course structure, so everything is in one place for those serious about learning artistic anatomy integrated with drawing and composing with the figure.

Here’s some of my recent 1.5 hour drawings from these sessions in which I draw beside you after the demo:


Free videos - accelerate your drawing with internalising head and figure structures

I have begun uploading videos of the anatomy demos from my portrait/figure life sessions.

I am offering structures and ways to build the figure that, if internalised, will radically help your obsvervational drawing.

Observational drawing cultivates memory/imagination, drawing from memory/imagination primes observational drawing

Watch free (just login in to your free or FGA account):

www.scottbreton.art/DWS

Short summary version of the last video here:

https://youtu.be/4hs-1p5SXXg

Due to popular demand, the sessions that these videos are from are now available twice most weeks:

Sunday 5-7:30pm

Tuesday 7-9:30pm

Hosted at Royal Queensland Art Society, Petrie Terrace, Brisbane

2 hour portait one week, 2 hour figure pose the next week

Bookings essential!

There is still a few places for Sunday 13th and 20th July coming up!

Torso page in the FGA course keeps expanding!

For those with access to the FGA course, I have to continued to develop the torso page www.scottbreton.art/torso

This is a super useful resource for memorising structures of the figure and cultivating your capacity to construct from imagination.

This includes 3D renderings, photo reference from the life model, and examples from art history for each of the key “primary” poses of the torso - neutral, bend, twist, isolate, as well as some of the “secondary” poses that combine primary poses.

Draw with Scott sessions - a couple of places remain for July sessions, Sundays starting soon

From the anatomy explainer in the first half hour, prior to the model starting the pose.

I still have a couple of places in some of the July "Draw with Scott" sessions on Tuesdays 7-7:30 at Royal Queensland Art Society (Brisbane Branch) Inc. Petrie Terrace, Brisbane.

These sessions alternate a portrait and a long figure session.

The first half hour is a "chalk and talk" anatomy demo about either the head/facial anatomy or other parts of the figure (depending on whether it is a portrait or figure that week. You can take notes/copy the diagrams and generally see my approach to the figure combining construction and flow.

The next hour the model takes the pose, we all draw, you can come over and watch what I am doing if you wish.

After the half time break, I offer one round of feedback on your drawing if you want it, though I'm completely happy to leave you alone too!

Then I will return to my drawing until the end of the session.

Due to popular demand, I am trialling a Sunday afternoon session 5-7:30pm, with the same format and the same alternation of portrait and figure poses.

Bookings essential, go to:

https://scottbreton.square.site/product/draw-with-scott-casual-weekly-drawing-lesson-portrait-one-week-figure-long-pose-the-next/27?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=4

or simply www.brisbanedraw.com

My sketches from recent sessions - pastel and pastel pencil

 

Shots from the anatomy explainer in the first 30mins:

 

“Persophone in Green” Jennifer Allnutt

In other news, my partner and fellow painter Jennifer Allnutt has a beautiful new painting showing at Quirky Fox’s new group show “Daughters of Eve”, view the work here

Jennifer Allnutt's new solo show closes soon!

My partner and fellow painter Jennifer Allnutt has a wonderful new collection at Lethbridge Gallery in Brisbane, Australia

Titled “Florescence”, a botanical term refering to flowering, this is a gorgeous and surreal series about delicate and profuse beauty combined with the disquieting potential for suffocating overgrowth.

Closes the 24th June, so just over a week to go but keep in mind the gallery is not open on Sundays and Mondays…

See the collection here, there are just a few pieces still available:

https://lethbridgegallery.com/exhibition/259

Showing beside Jennifer’s show is a collection of beautiful and quietly symbolic drawings from Summer Aldis, titled “Old Soul”: https://lethbridgegallery.com/exhibition/258

So don’t miss these two amazing shows!

 

New casual LONG POSE life class!

For those in Brisbane I am starting a casual LONG POSE life class on the 27th May at RQAS Petrie Tce. 

Unlike my FGA Anatomy course and Figurative Composition course which are a multi-session commitment, these session will be casual.

I will do a 30 min artistic anatomy and/or drawing process demo, followed by a 2 hour sustained pose from the model: portrait one week and then figure pose the next.  

I will give one round of feedback, if desired, at about the midpoint.

Otherwise I will be doing my own drawing - you can watch me draw and/or do your own drawing as you prefer.

Just book in to make sure you get a spot - you can book in for specific date, or a block of 4 dates (with a 10% discount on the 4  session option). (Or take your chances and pay on the night.)