Nov 9, 2019

By Layne Stracener of the Tribune

Cody Wheelock has been an artist ever since he can remember. Growing up, he was always considered the “art kid” in class, and in middle school and high school, he created a small business selling portraits to his classmates.

Cody Wheelock has been an artist ever since he can remember. Growing up, he was always considered the “art kid” in class, and in middle school and high school, he created a small business selling portraits to his classmates.

After earning a master’s degree in art education, Wheelock became a high school art teacher and an art instructor at a museum. He also taught private lessons from his home studio space a couple times a week. He enjoyed these private lessons so much that he decided he wanted to do it full time.

Wheelock recently opened a classical art instruction studio in Lee’s Summit, Fount Atelier of Fine Art. The core program includes two-and-a-half-hour classes once a week, and students can enroll on a month-to-month basis.

In college, Wheelock learned about the Atelier Movement which focused on teaching classical drawing and painting methods. He adopted its systemic approach where everyone works at their own pace.

“It was just really interesting how they moved people from not being able to do anything to being able to do these full-fledged, amazing paintings,” Wheelock said. “These were just normal people, not people that had some sort of special gene or talent.”

Wheelock said he gravitated toward that skill-building, fundamental aspect.

“Their whole goal was to build up your level of skill and competency to a point where then you had no handcuffs,” Wheelock said. “You could be as creative as you wanted to and nothing would hold you back.”

Cody Wheelock has been an artist ever since he can remember. Growing up, he was always considered the “art kid” in class, and in middle school and high school, he created a small business selling portraits to his classmates.

After earning a master’s degree in art education, Wheelock was a high school and college art teacher. As a college art professor, Wheelock also taught private lessons from his home studio space a couple times a week. He enjoyed these private lessons so much that he decided he wanted to do it full time.

Wheelock recently opened a classical art instruction studio in Lee’s Summit, Fount Atelier of Fine Art. The core program includes two and a half hour classes once a week. Students can enroll on a month-to-month basis.

In college, Wheelock learned about the Atelier Movement which focused on teaching classical drawing and painting methods. He adopted its systemic approach where everyone works at their own pace.

“It was just really interesting how they moved people from not being able to do anything to being able to do these full-fledged, amazing paintings,” Wheelock said. “These were just normal people, not people that had some sort of special gene or talent or anything like that.”

Wheelock said he gravitated toward that skill-building, fundamental aspect.

“Their whole goal was to build up your level of skill and competency to a point where then you had no handcuffs,” Wheelock said. “You could be as creative as you wanted to and nothing would hold you back.”

Wheelock said sometimes a student’s first impression is that they’re not talented enough to learn how to paint or draw. He reassures them by telling them the curriculum begins with how to sharpen a pencil properly with a blade and sandpaper.

Emma Kuhn, one of Wheelock’s high school students, could only draw stick figures before she took his drawing and painting classes. Now, painting is one of her favorite hobbies.

“Some of the things that I’ve created I can’t even believe that I’ve created,” Kuhn said. “It’s very satisfying, once you’re done with a piece of art, to look at it and say, ‘I did that.’ And it’s a wonderful outlet for stress. If I get super zoned in to one of my pieces of art, I just lose track of time and I’ll look up from my canvas and four hours have passed by.”

Kuhn went into Wheelock’s classroom during all her free periods to work on her art, and she said she could tell that he enjoyed seeing her progression and really cared about making sure she got to where she wanted to be.

“Mr. Wheelock was the best art teacher I could ever ask for,” Kuhn said. “He was so wonderful. He was always very nice, very kind with giving feedback … He kind of figured out how our brains worked so he could explain it to us in a more specific way. He picked up on people’s learning styles very quickly.”

Katie Schenk, another former student, had only taken one basic art class before signing up for Wheelock’s classes. She said she had always wanted to learn how to paint, but she didn’t think she had the talent.

“I always thought people were born able to do art, but with Cody, he walked us through a very planned process that made it clear to me that anybody can do it,” Schenk said. “It was more about learning the process and figuring out your style, which was eye-opening to me and very refreshing to think that there’s something that I can now do that I thought I never could.”

Wheelock said one of the reasons he wanted to open his own instruction studio was because of the sense of community and the relationships that are built in his group lessons.

“If you’re a full-time artist, it can be a little lonely sometimes because you’re just working by yourself all the time,” Wheelock said. “Having students in your space with you, that sense of community is great. I love the art and the teaching part, but it’s really about getting to form new relationships with the students and building that community that make it really fun.”

Wheelock said he also loves seeing students of different ages and backgrounds form relationships.

“You’ve got a 70 year old man learning and seeing what a 13 year old middle school girl is doing in the same group, and they’re learning from each other,” Wheelock said. “I just don’t think you see that cross-generational interaction a lot today.”

When Wheelock announced that he was moving, three students in the private lesson group that Schenk was in decided that they would still meet on a regular basis to paint together and help each other because they formed such great relationships.

“(Wheelock’s) teaching style is very easy to remember,” Schenk said. “His art students still thank him for all that he’s done for us. All three of us were new to drawing and painting and we’re all continuing on. We wish him well.”

Fount Atelier of Fine Art is located at 656 S.E. Bayberry Lane, Suite 104. For more information, call 816-632-0400 or visit fountatelier.com.