Cultivate fluid mark-making and bold approaches to subject matter through rapid and loose painting studies. Tight and precise painting, especially in the early stages of an artwork, can sometimes lead to work that appears stiff and over-labored, or to locked-in compositions that are difficult to change or correct. Working from the still life, cityscapes, and the life model, utilize short, small painting exercises to learn new ways of starting paintings, keeping compositions open to adjustment, and both initiating and retaining a sense of freshness in your forms and brushstrokes. Instruction will address color mixing, painting materials and methodologies, and the importance of cultivating viable methods for growth in your painting practice. Discover the beauty and freedom of loosening up your painting!
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Roger Chavez
Cost: $475
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

This class emphasizes the immediacy, spontaneity and vitality of direct observation. Working from life, students will capture the beauty of simple subjects using expressive brushwork and intuitive color choices. They will be encouraged to paint the spirit of the subject rather focus upon detail. Lectures, demos and critiques will be incorporated into each class. All levels welcome but some experience in oils is required.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Georganna Lenssen
Cost: $360
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This class will focus on the fundamentals of painting with watercolors. This class will include step-by-step instruction with demonstrations and practice. Attention and focus on individual growth at the students’ own pace will be central in this class. Learn to paint watercolors in a free, fun and fluent manner. Discover and nurture your own personal style of expression. All levels welcome.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Indira Cariappa
Cost: $200
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This class is for students who want to deepen their understanding of watercolors and move beyond the basics. We learn advanced techniques in a progressive, step by step manner. This class is very interactive with demos and practice. The students progress at their own pace. Everyone is encouraged to discover and develop their own style. This is a fun filled class, with one-on-one attention to every student. Please bring your watercolor paper, colors, brushes and palette that you already have.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Indira Cariappa
Cost: $200
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This workshop is designed to guide students in transforming their works on paper—including drawings, paintings, and prints—into dynamic mixed media pieces, with a particular emphasis on collage techniques. Instruction will be tailored to each student's individual interests and skill levels, making the workshop suitable for everyone from beginners to advanced artists. Former students are encouraged to bring in previous work that they consider unfinished or unsuccessful to use as a starting point for their mixed media experiments and creations. Printing Methods Covered: Monotype, Collagraph, Frottage and Image Transfer.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Christine Stoughton
Cost: $240
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Watercolor is a wonderful painting medium due to its vibrant and translucent nature, quick drying time, and easy set-up and clean-up. Explore this versatile medium a supportive and immersive environment! Focus will be color theory and brush work demonstrations as we explore the basics of color mixing, layering washes and a sense of touch. Painting from natural subject matter including still life, botanical studies and/or your own source material. Drawing experience is helpful but not required.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Michelle Oosterbaan
Cost: $250
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

This workshop will cover indirect methods of working on established paintings. Subjects such as glazing, velatura and scumbling; as well as subtractive methods will be explained. Class will consist of detailed demos and studio time to experiment on your own work. Students should bring a few completed paintings on which to try out these techniques.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Jon Redmond
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Painting and Drawing are languages. Visual languages. And as with learning any language one must grasp the concepts and then dig into the vocabulary. This course is designed to expose the student to new ways of thinking about drawing and painting and how they speak to the viewer. We will explore the language and vocabulary of mark making as we strive to improve our visual skills. The student will be immersed in a series of exercises that with strengthen and reinforce very basic principles that are often overlooked. Lon will describe his approach thru demos each day followed up with one-on-one instruction as students give it a go. Students will be working with dry and wet media to find fresh avenues for art making.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Lon Brauer
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Explore the exciting world of handmade visual books! Learn to make both a single page book and an accordion fold book. All materials provided. An array of colorful patterned sheets will be available to construct multiple formats. Additional book construction, paper handling information, and links to private tutorials will be shared. No experience necessary – all are welcome
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Diane Pepe
Cost: $95
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery & Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

In this fun and creative pottery workshop, you’ll piece together textured clay slabs to design a one-of-a-kind nameplate or house number plaque! Using hand-building techniques, you’ll cut and layer different clay pieces, just like assembling a quilt, to create a beautifully unique sign. Your letters, numbers, or symbols will be “appliquéd” on using thin slabs, giving your design depth and personality. Experiment with stamps, rollers, carving, and underglaze to make your textures pop! After firing and glazing, your durable, weatherproof ceramic plaque will be ready to add a touch of handmade charm to your home. Whether you go for bold and modern, rustic and cozy, or playful and whimsical, this workshop is the perfect way to stitch together creativity and clay!
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Karen Sacks
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Explore the painting techniques of the masters who pioneered the 19th and 20th century American watercolor movement, including Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, and Charles Demuth. Characterized by bright color and bold handling that includes accents of opaque watercolor and loose washes, work in this tradition captures subject matter with dazzling light-filled effects. Practice these classic methods and learn to incorporate them into your own artwork to achieve a greater freedom of expression as well as adaptability and control in the way that you paint. Demonstrations and art historical discussions will be combined with short and more extensive still life and self-portrait exercises. This course is appropriate for beginning and intermediate levels.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Richard Estell
Cost: $295
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Students will strengthen core watercolor skills while learning how to paint atmospheric landscapes, convincing reflections in water, and lively streetscapes. Each week builds on the last, introducing new techniques, composition strategies, and subject challenges. Lets have fun painting in a loose, impressionistic manner by learning how to simplify and edit scenes to come up with convincing paintings using your own photographs. Hands on step-by-step guidance and instruction will be provided.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Radhika Srinivas
Cost: $240
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Bring a little magic to your home -- make your own whimsical woodland gnome complete with a beard and pointy hat! Join us for an afternoon of clay together with your child to create a little gnome sculpture all your own. Learn the basics of working with kiln-fired clay and colorful glazes while you make one project together with your child. If you each want to create your own project, please register yourself and each child separately. Ages 6 and up with an adult. All works created will be fired and ready for pick up approximately two weeks from the date of the workshop.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Cost: $55
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

These two carefully guided, immersive days in the studio will focus on nurturing perceptual discrimination and clarifying observation, asking questions about not what we see, but more importantly, how we see, within the experience of visual encounter. Working both the from the model and from reproductions (including older and 20th century masters,) we’ll paint our way through a sequence of playful visual exercises and explorations, to understand that abstraction – composition/design with color and shape – is THE foundation, the great engine behind all painting.
 
Location: Philadelphia, PA, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Stuart Shils
Cost: $395
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Geometry has been a source of interest, beauty and creative inspiration for the artist through the ages. Geometric forms, lines and shapes are all around us and can be seen in everything from architecture to plant life to seashells. Learn non-mathematical strategies inspired by geometry designed to enhance your ongoing body of work or be the starting point for a new one with focus on simplifying subject matter, building a unified composition and creating or enhancing a color palette. Work in the medium of your choice: acrylic, gouache or watercolor while working from your own reference photographs, drawings, books or digital imagery. Designed for both beginners and experienced art makers.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Michael Smith
Cost: $175
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery & Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Have you been using a palette knife just to mix paint, but not sure how to use it on the canvas? In this one-day workshop, discover how to paint confidently with a knife to achieve bold texture, crisp edges, and expressive detail. Through demonstrations and hands-on practice, you’ll explore techniques for painting architecture and landscapes with depth and energy. Learn to create vibrant color, dynamic texture, and a more painterly approach in this fun, fast-paced class.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Shushana Rucker
Cost: $95
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery & Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Do you jot down writings as you paint? Or maybe you have an ongoing writing practice. Join poet and artist Cathleen Cohen and explore the link between painting and poetry. Deepen and expand your creative process even if you've never written a poem before! Draw and paint with watercolor and write in response to helpful prompts in a supportive environment. Examine how artists like Jean Arp, Kenneth Patchen and Wassily Kandinsky linked the written word and visual art. All levels welcome.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Cathleen Cohen
Cost: $75
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery & Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

This workshop will provide an opportunity for those interested in the palette knife and other alternative painting tools to broaden horizons and creative skills. While all mediums are invited, the workshop is particularly geared to those working in oils or acrylics. The format, while reinforcing the basic skills needed for the creation of well-balanced colorful images, is individualized to accommodate a wide variety of experience levels as well as styles of painting; and from those interested in representational to abstract imagery. This is the perfect workshop for those wishing to introduce new tools to their repertoire, better master color usage, and gain a range of techniques for applying paint.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Cynthia Rosen
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This workshop focuses on discovering your unique abstract voice. Through a series of small paintings created on the first day, you'll begin to recognize the development of your authentic expression and how it distinguishes you from other artists. These initial works may also reveal insights into how adjusting your approach to using visual language can more powerfully express your abstract voice. The second day features group discussion exploring how artistic inspiration shapes color and composition differently for each artist, followed by individual consultations on integrating the workshop's insights into your personal practice. This workshop is for artists with some painting experience and artists with a lot of painting experience.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Marianne Mitchell
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Bohls’ work is deeply rooted in a study of historical vessels. She translates these forms first by doing a series of drawings and then building forms using the coil and pinch method of handbuilding. In this workshop, Margaret will share images of a variety of historical pottery forms. She will also give a brief demonstration of her drawing techniques - used to create a visual framework for her coil-build objects and to translate historical form language into contemporary pottery forms. Demonstrations will include the building of a variety of utilitarian forms, with an emphasis on the creation of inventive lids, spouts, handles and other attachments. Student will have the opportunity to build a small vessel during the workshop.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Margaret Bohls
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Exploring abstracts on a larger scale in the medium of your choosing, this 5-day class will push you into new territory where growth lives… only upsized, because bigger risks equal bigger rewards. You will be shown a system for developing your artistic voice, with a focus on design principles and the language of abstraction. The emphasis is on creative process, exploring new ways to develop and build paintings, create inventive compositions, and build authentic intent in your work. The class is as much a challenge for the experienced as it is for the developing artist, but it’s not for the rank beginner. Bring a sense of humor, a fearless creative spirit, and an open mind.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Larry Moore
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553