Art School & Courses

The Digital Thangka Art School

The art of painting Tibetan thangka’s dates back to at least the 11th century. Since then, painting has been formalized into different traditions (so called ‘lineages’), based on grids, colours and Buddhist iconography. This knowledge has been handed down from teachers to students during many centuries. To honour that tradition, I want to teach aspiring students the tools to incorporate digital techniques into their own lineages.

To achieve that goal, I am currently setting up a Digital Thangka Art School that will offer both basic and advanced courses. At start-up, the school’s location will be virtual and highly mobile: content will be transferred over the internet and I (and future teachers) will be travelling the world. In the future there might be a physical location, where students can reside for extended periods.

I am also assembling a little guild of talented and driven students to assist me in my projects.

Digital Thangka Art School
Lineage: Thargey-la and Andy, me and Yaren Köse.

Upcoming and past courses

Basic Course Digital Thangka painting - 22 August 2017 to 30 August 2017 - Tushita Meditation Center Spain

For the first time, Tushita Meditation Center Spain offers a basic course on digital thangka painting by Fred van der Zee.

The course consists of daily drawing workshops, meditation, and explanations of the Buddhist figures and iconography. The course also will include general information sessions on computer hardware for computer graphics, an overview of the various graphic software products, and work flow (from sketch to the final image). Subjects taught are: drawing the face of the Buddha, his body and garments, and adding colour shading and gold.

At the end of the course every student will receive a little digital booklet with some tips&tricks, especially tuned for digital thangka painting.

More information about the course and how to sign up can be found at Tushita's website.