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

In this landscape class, students will begin with a foundation in strong composition and shape, learning how to distill the complexity of expansive scenes into simple, expressive forms. The focus will be on shape and color, gradually eliminating non-essential details to reveal the essence of the landscape. Please bring your favorite landscape references to class- ones that have an apparent variety of shapes and values. In the first week, we’ll concentrate on selecting compelling references and uncovering the underlying design within the image. Students will begin on small surfaces to complete small studies, progressing to larger formats in week two. Medium: Oil, pastel, or acrylic (class taught in oil). Level: Intermediate to advanced.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Claudia Rilling
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Explore past techniques to inspire new ways of drawing! Experiment with silverpoint, chalk, and conté on a variety of historical surfaces: a beautiful and easy-to-erase silverpoint surface (tafelleten); a receptive pastel surface made from volcanic ash; and a versatile ground of acrylic gesso with calcium carbonate treatment for a variety of media. Take part in surface preparations to better understand and employ their properties, and then use them to draw from traditional subject matter such as still lifes, antique casts, and the nude figure. Perfect for draftspeople interested in expanding their craft and anyone with a fascination for historical practices. Students should come prepared to purchase materials necessary to make the various surfaces directly from the instructor, approximately $10.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Roger Chavez
Cost: $205
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Join Cerulean Arts Collective artist Laura Eyring to create an expressive, colorful landscape using a “mosaic” technique in oils. Eyring‘s approach to oils focuses on mixing dozens of saturated colors from a limited number of paints. With no blending or overlapping, each stroke is set as an individual gem of color on a pre-toned panel. The result is a stained-glass effect with a vibrant quality. Bring your favorite landscape reference photos for a day to explore this colorful style. A short demo will be followed by a day of painting. Leave those earth tones at home and get ready to create an imaginative scene inspired by nature!
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Laura Eyring
Cost: $115
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Wood engraving is a relief printmaking process that involves carving into end grain hardwood, making it possible for an artist to create highly detailed images and tonally rich compositions. Wood engraving is a great way to incorporate imagery into letterpress cards, book plates, printed ephemera, artist books, broadsides, and of course to develop graphic stand-alone images, especially when there is a need to work small. Students will be guided through the entire process from transferring an image, to engraving, to printing small editions. Participants will learn about types of wood used for engraving, care and sharpening of tools, and types of paper. Printing by hand as well as on a small proof press will be covered.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Rebecca Gilbert
Cost: $480
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Working from still life, this class seeks to give students a clear approach to their palette by focusing on the building blocks of color such as value, color temperature, and hue. By the end of class, students should be able to control the colors on their palette to recreate what they’re observing in the real world.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Nathan Durnin
Cost: $320
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: $95
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

The foundation of a good drawing or painting is "composition," or the arrangement of shapes, lines, textures and colors. Learn to create effective and pleasing compositions in this instructive and fun drawing workshop with artist, educator and Cerulean Collective member Alyce Grunt! Alyce will guide you through the process of making an adjustable viewfinder, then to practice seeing a still life arrangement as a collection of shapes that fit together like a puzzle. Learn to make “thumbnail” sketches – small, quick drawings – to determine the ‘must-haves’ and what you can leave behind in your composition. Take your favorite thumbnail sketches and make a drawing or two based on your most satisfying compositional arrangements.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Alyce Grunt
Cost: $75
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

Color temperature is the perceived warmth and coolness of a color. It’s a vital tool for any artist for creating contrast and focus, establishing relationships between light and shadow, suggesting space or distance, and generating mood and meaning. This two-day course will investigate color temperature through a series of still-life exercises that will encourage experimentation, enforce understanding of color’s relative nature, and help you promote temperature effects in your work. Examples from historic and contemporary artists will be discussed. Instruction will be conducted chiefly in watercolor, but painters of all media are welcome!
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Keith Leitner
Cost: $195
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

During this one-day intensive workshop, Beth shares her unique technique for painting with water mixable (soluble) oils. 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. In the morning Beth will do a demo from a still life setup and show how she uses simple apps on her phone to simplify forms enhance value and emphasize composition. In the afternoon students will work from similar still life setups. This workshop is for all levels.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Beth Bathe
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Students will use a limited palette of their choosing to create contemporary abstracts based on an expressive or geometric approach. The works of notable abstract painters will be shared and discussed to aid in discovering your own aesthetic in this intuitive approach to painting. This is a free and supportive way to step away from a representational style to a completely abstract style where color and composition rule. See website for supplies.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Abby Ober
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553