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 and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

This class will explore wood as a primary art-making medium, looking at its many types, techniques and uses. Students will develop a well-rounded foundation of wood-working skills including cutting, milling, laminating, joinery and safe use of wood-working tools. Contemporary, traditional and ancient art works made of wood will be presented for historical and contextual understanding. Students will be encouraged to find their own unique voice within the material while building skills. Tuition includes $30 materials fee.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: John Greig
Cost: $395
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Explore your creativity, open your senses and sharpen your mind to new realms of art-making. Noted artist Mikel Elam will help you articulate your vision and bring it to concrete reality in the form of a finished work. Explore techniques new and old with paint, paper, found objects and ephemera to best express both representational and abstract perspectives. Channel ideas of progressive artists from the past and present including Henri Matisse, Romare Bearden, Cecily Brown, Joan Mitchell while finding your own voice.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Mikel Elam
Cost: $250
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Join Caleb in the garden as he paints the flowers in bloom. He will walk you through his approach to building a picture, beginning with drawing in larger shapes and building up layers until he has a crisp, detailed interpretation of the subject. If weather is unpleasant, we will meet inside.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Caleb Stoltzfus
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. Learn to incorporate dry media into your painting including color pencil, watercolor pencil, and pastel! Painting from natural subject matter including still life, botanical studies and landscape. Drawing experience is helpful but not required.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Michelle Oosterbaan
Cost: $250 or $60 per session
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Learn how to make a quick and fun book in few hours. You will learn a paint transfer technique, pop-up mechanisms, pamphlet stitching, and a simple one sheet zig-zag accordion technique. The beauty and simplicity of these techniques can inspire you to become a book binding artist. By the end of the workshop, you will be a pro!
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Alicia Mino Gonzalez
Cost: $115
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Experience the joy of watercolor painting in combination with gouache and ink to create a range of effects! Learn techniques for layering ink and watercolor to develop a deep, rich surface as well as direct, alla prima methods while you work from your own photographs. Add gouache and drawing media for contrast and definition. All tools and techniques will be explained and demonstrated including preparatory drawing, brushes, types of paper, use of color and painting methods. Designed to be instructional and fun for students of all levels of experience from beginner to advanced.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Michael Kowbuz
Cost: $250
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Push your color and simplify forms in this one-day expressive workshop. Working from sunny landscape photography of your own, you will explore ways to use an arbitrary approach to color and create compositions in the style of fauvist painters Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. Plan to paint no larger than 11 x14. A demo and examples of their fauves will be shared to better understand this vibrant style of painting.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Abby Ober
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Don't miss this opportunity to work with renowned painter Bill Scott to explore the sensuous yet thoughtful abstract construction of space in this two-day, intensive studio workshop. Color will be the focus as participants paint from an expansive still life environment with special prompts from Scott. This workshop is designed for intermediate/advanced painters.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Bill Scott
Cost: $395
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Stewart will show how to take advantage of the transparency of watercolor and the power of light on the paper.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Stewart White
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Meditative drawing is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. Learn to express yourself while creating your own designs and improve your drawing skills at the same time. It will help boost your creativity and ability to focus, cultivate mindfulness and improve your overall mind/body wellness. Join us for a fun, creative and relaxing day!
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Alicia Mino Gonzalez
Cost: $95
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Learn everything you need to know about the medium of soft pastels. Apply basic and advanced techniques in rendering the still-life, portraits and cityscape views. Topics include the use of light and color, types of pastel available, use of different papers, fixing and transporting finished drawings, and safety issues.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Joseph Sweeney
Cost: $95
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Experience masterful instruction in PAFA’s spacious print facilities as you explore an array of basic intaglio and monotype printing techniques including monoprint, drypoint, etching, aquatint, collograph and polymer plate methods. Image embellishments will include embossing, chine collé, collage, paper plates and mixed media techniques. All levels welcome; experienced students may continue independent work. Note: Tuition includes $20 lab fee.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Tony Rosati
Cost: $315
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

This six-week on-campus studio-rental program is designed for experienced visual artists who desire constructive feedback on their artwork, as well as the support and interaction of an artistic community. Stimulate your personal artistic growth in your own private PAFA studio through individual weekly critiques from a stellar ensemble of notable artists, including members of PAFA’s acclaimed faculty, as well as discussion, group critiques, and artist studio visits. Tuition covers a personal studio in PAFA's Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building, weekly critiques (one-on-one; one group critique), and additional group discussions and outings to museums and commercial galleries (scheduled per students' interests). This is an uninstructed program; as such, prior art-making experience and the ability to work independently are required.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cost: $1,350
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Energize and open up your approach to figure painting through rapid, loose oil painting studies from the life model. Learn tactics to avoid the tendency toward tightness and over-attention to detail too early in the process that can lead to work that lacks liveliness in gesture or mark and is difficult to adjust or correct. Through short, small-scale painting exercises from the model in one-day poses, learn new ways of approaching life painting with an emphasis on keeping compositions fluid, capturing the gesture and character of the subject before getting locked into its contours, and both initiating and retaining a sense of freshness in your color and brushstrokes. Instruction will address color mixing, painting materials and methodologies.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Roger Chavez
Cost: $515
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

An Artist Book is a work of art in the form of a book and can encompass a wide variety of formats and sculptural qualities. If you are interested in making your own Artist Books and don’t know how to begin, or if you have bookmaking experience and want to learn more, this concise course will take you through the process from beginning to end. Starting with a discussion about the history, formats, and unique qualities of Artist Books, instruction will guide students through choosing the best book structure, creating mock-ups, and methods of finish to bring each participant's ideas to life. Ways to create imagery and various book forms will be addressed through discussion, demonstration, and individualized guidance.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Rosae Reeder
Cost: $295
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

In this fast paced and fun weekend workshop we discuss the importance of composition and design in our work and then apply what we’ve learned to a variety of subjects to create works of sophisticated simplicity.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Mick McAndrews
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Too much of the same green? Discover the importance of using a range of greens to make your landscapes more impactful. Begin with creating a variety of color swatches of your chosen landscape, pushing some warmer or cooler or lighter or darker. Work on balancing these with other colors in your piece to create a harmonious and balanced composition. Various examples of paintings will be shared a short demo as well in color mixing from a limited palette of color. You can choose to work on smaller landscape studies or a larger finished piece.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Abby Ober
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of relief printmaking without a press. Students will learn linocut and woodcut carving and hand printing techniques. The tools and techniques covered are accessible and can be continued at home with minimal equipment. Upon completion, students should feel confident creating and printing their own relief designs independently.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Shushana Rucker
Cost: $150
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Enhance your creativity with the highly individual medium of collage! Learn how to bring together random materials to create your own unique images, patterns and textures. Alicia will guide you through the process as you compose a layout, create surfaces, gather materials according to color, texture and pattern, and paste up your composition. Enjoy a day of artistic exploration and have fun discovering the numerous ways to manipulate paper, cardboard, fabric and more!
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Alicia Mino Gonzalez
Cost: $115
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Join artist, writer and educator Tom Csaszar for helpful feedback on your artwork. A group critique is an excellent means of both dispelling feelings of artistic isolation or uncertainty and finding inspiration in the ideas and artwork of others in a supportive environment. In the morning, we will discuss each participant’s work. In the afternoon, we will continue the conversations while working together on individual projects in the Cerulean studio. Each participant should bring in 5 - 10 works to view, experience, and discuss, including work in progress. Bring also the painting materials of your choice to either work on a piece your brought or start a new work(s). Ideal for artists of all levels in all media.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Tom Csaszar
Cost: $95
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Monotypes are an expressive and accessible entry into printmaking: draw or paint an image on a Plexiglas plate or other surface and then print it on paper or fabric to create a one-of-a-kind artwork. Instruction will cover both hand-printing and press techniques, as well as water- and oil-based colors. Tuition includes a $30 lab fee.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Tony Rosati
Cost: $480
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632