Hi John,
A couple of atelier links you might be interested in:
1. The Art Renewal Center has an ARC-approved list of ateliers, some of which might be in your neck of the woods here:
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/atelier_list.asp
2.
www.Gandygallery.com and the John Pence Gallery
www.johnpence.com both have great online galleries where you can view works by atelier-trained painters.
3.
www.Classicalrealism.com is the online site for the American Society of Classical Realism. On their "publications" page, I highly recommend Richard Lack's
"On the Training of Painters", an inexpensive publication, and the first place where I saw (clearly spelled out) the difference between the Venetian and Flemish methods of creating a painting. If you found the Vermeer site interesting, you should really look this one up. And for more debth, he references the book,
"Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters," by Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, which Cynthia offers here on the book link.
I think you'll have lots of opportunities for this sort of study in California.