Let’s warm up our creative painting skills for the coming season of outdoor painting. Fred will do some paint sketch demos to illustrate some ways of how to start a painting, define some compositional ideas, and show a variety of ways to apply and move paint on the canvas. We will paint from Life; a visually complex still life composition will be our subject. The idea is to edit - simplify and define what you like - a skill required for landscape painting. By doing a series of paint sketches, we test different compositional structures, color combinations, and mark making techniques. Finding a way that works for you can offer confidence and lead to creating a successful bold painting.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Fred Jackson
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Reboot your painting practice by incorporating unexpected materials that you wouldn't normally compose a painting with - grocery lists, diary pages, junk mail, things in the street such as a flattened pencil or chunk of sanding belt, or something that you don’t really know what it is but the shape or material interests you. Learn practical methods to incorporate these materials into a cohesive painted surface, as well as strategies for defeating artist's block so you can start and move a painting(s) forward. Question stereotypical notions of what paintings are and how to make them in order to realize your personal vision and practice.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Philippa Beardsley
Cost: $175
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

This intermediate-level landscape painting workshop offers an exciting opportunity to deepen your understanding and skills in capturing the natural world. Whether you work from plein air studies or reference photos, you’ll have the chance to learn how to develop more complete and nuanced paintings. Throughout the course, we will focus on key elements of landscape painting, including: Shapes and Composition, Color, Light and Atmosphere. Please come prepared for the first class with your painting supplies and a selection of surfaces in various sizes. All mediums are welcome. The instructor will be working in oils.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Claudia Rilling
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

In this workshop, students will gain a stronger understanding of materials and techniques while exploring the process of still life painting. This class will include demonstrations by the instructor, personal instruction, discussions and more. Students will emerge from this class with a better understanding of composition, paint handling and artistic problem solving. Students are encouraged to bring their own still life objects.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Alexander Shanks
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

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 setting a viable learning environment for your painting practice. Discover the beauty and freedom of loosening up your painting!
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Roger Chavez
Cost: $310
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Whether you are new or returning to oil painting, learn its materials and techniques and how to apply them effectively in this foundational course. Instruction will discuss and demonstrate a range of colors, paint brands, and painting mediums and demystify painting conventions such as “fat over lean” and “thick over thin.” Working from still-life subject matter, begin with simple “direct” alla prima sketches, and then advance to “indirect” layering approaches of building upon a tonal underpainting. Develop methodologies for the process of making a painting, including managing color and value, and constructing an engaging composition. Previous drawing experience recommended.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Frederic Kaplan
Cost: $295
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

This workshop will simplify the complexity of information that a face presents by breaking down the two critical components of “likeness” and “light on form”. While painting from a live model, we will achieve a likeness by identifying the simple proportions of the face and features. Additionally, to understand how “light on form” works we will identify the simple structure of the values in light and shadow, and see how this creates a sense of dimension in your work. Our paintings will start with a grisaille (tonal study in paint) and then move into color with a simplified palette. The workshop is geared toward oil painting, but mediums other than oil are welcome.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Ellen Cooper
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Paint from a life model in poses of varying lengths to develop and refine your figure painting compositions. Extended poses will allow students to adjust and resolve issues of surface, color, and composition. Instruction will cover a variety of topics including glazing, broken color, surface texture, composition and design, the relationship of the figure to the environment, the creation of atmosphere and color harmony, disrupted realism, and open- versus closed-form painting. All levels welcome. Instruction will be geared toward oil, but students are welcome to draw-only, or use other appropriate media, if they wish. Note: Tuition includes a $35 models fee.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: David Wilson
Cost: $330
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

This one-day tree painting workshop dives into tree structure and how to capture a tree's personality in painting. We will focus on building the tree's gesture, capturing its shape and movement, creating depth with its trunk, and understanding how its foliage integrates into the larger form. Our goal is to learn how to generalize the tree's structure and capture its essence without getting bogged down in minute details. The class will include lots of one-on-one instruction and a lecture exploring how both historical and contemporary painters approach tree construction. Instead of aiming for finished paintings, we'll create two or three tree studies to solidify our understanding of trees and how we can communicate their individual character. Work in oil or acrylic.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Claire Haik
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

There is a misconception that drawing and painting are two completely different animals. Not true! Drawing and painting come from the same root. Both are forms of mark making. If we take that to heart, we can better understand the mechanics of how paintings are made. This then leads to an open path in the pursuit of art making. This two-day course will immerse the student in a series of exercises that with strengthen and reinforce very basic principles that are often overlooked. Your artwork will take on a dynamism and movement that only a painting can convey. I will show you ways to stretch your visual experience and then gain confidence with your image making thru intuitive choices.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Lon Brauer
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This workshop will explore the process of working in the studio from photographs, looking at both historic and contemporary examples, as well as class demonstrations and individual instruction. We will sort through the inherent strengths and weaknesses of using the photograph as the basis for a painting. Jon will also discuss ways to manipulate your photos with the iPhone and how to choose the best photos from which to work.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Jon Redmond
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Wondering what Water Mixable Oil paints are all about? During this one-day intensive workshop, Beth shares her unique technique with students. Known for blurring the line between watercolor and oil paintings, Beth Bathe's unparalleled style evokes feelings of nostalgia, like an old sepia-toned photograph. Beth uses unconventional tools including squeegees and Q-tips, along with her brushes focusing on composition, values, edges, and drawing rather than color. Beth will have paint for her students to try as well as one of her prepared painting panels, brushes and other supplies for you to use during the workshop. This workshop is for all level of painters.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Beth Bathe
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

The oil sketch is a traditional way for painters to execute preparatory ideas and quickly capture initial impressions – perfect for plein air painting! Learn useful techniques for rapidly encapsulating color and form while working directly from observation. Locations with shade and restrooms include Bartram’s Garden along the Schuylkill River and the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, near Philadelphia International Airport. Note: Students are responsible for their own transportation to painting locations.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Roger Chavez
Cost: $375
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

This two-day workshop will focus on the use of the palette knife, the freedom it affords and the emphasis of color in your paintings. While the palette knife can be used to enhance brush paintings, it is a perfect tool for impressionistic as well as abstracted images rich in color. I will introduce the differences between brush painting and knife painting by executing 2 small paintings of the same subject with the different tools as I briefly review issues of composition, value, and color mixing. As you work on your own paintings in oil or acrylic, I will assist you in color relationships, values, use of the knife, edges, etc.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Cynthia Rosen
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Capture the small-town beauty Manayunk's hilly streets, rowhomes, and storefronts. Learn to create a convincing sense of space, light and time of day while depicting streetscapes, trees, water and sky. Color mixing and painting techniques for oils will be demonstrated, but all drawing/painting media are welcome. Located just 15 minutes outside of Philadelphia, Manayunk offers engaging urban and riverside neighborhood subjects with parking, shade, provisions and facilities available. Note: Students are responsible for their own transportation to painting locations.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Larry Francis
Cost: $295
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Paint on location on the grounds of beautiful Ridgeland Mansion, the historic 18th century Federal-style house located in west Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. Landscape painting topics will include color mixing to achieve a sense of light and air, capturing time of day, compositional fundamentals, and sound painting practices for oil, acrylic, or pastel painting. Students are responsible for their own transportation.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Joseph Sweeney
Cost: $115
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

This class covers the fundamental tenets of design in art. You get to decide the level of abstraction you wish to explore. It is more a learn-how-to-think class where you learn a process that you can use to explore new ideas. It’s a crash course on finding authenticity in your work. This class covers the seven principles of creative expression and the language of art. Larry’s intent is to help each artist find a way that works that is unique to them, whether they wish to interpret from life, push their process, or go fully abstract. This is not a class for beginners, participants need to have some experience with drawing, color and painting.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Larry Moore
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553