This class includes a lecture and hands-on workshop. Joy’s lecture will discuss how to present your art professionally on an artist’s budget, designing an efficient workspace, and the basic tools of the trade needed to repurpose and craft beautiful one-of-a-kind frames. She will give a demonstration on constructing a frame, glass cutting, and assembling a framed piece of art with basic framing tools. You will walk away with a list of tools and knowledge to create your own winning combinations.

This two-day workshop includes a lecture and demonstration on the use of controlled lighting for a consistent light source resembling natural light. The hands-on portion of the workshop will be a day and a half of working together on still-life setups using various artificial lighting techniques. We will go through a series of steps that will demonstrate some of the various lighting options, as well as using light and shadow as part of the compositional element. Once a satisfactory setup has been established with both the still life and the lighting, participants will be given the option to paint a color sketch of the still life from their setup or continue by working with different light and or setups. If painting, this will enable you to work through the process of painting with and from artificial light.

Lecture and demonstration on the use of controlled lighting for a consistent light source resembling natural light. 

Steven will discuss both an analytical and emotive approach to painting the human figure with an emphasis on color and value relationships in a related atmosphere. The class will consist of a model pose in both cool and warm light. The development of form through observation and interpretation of plane shifts projecting and receding from the eye will be stressed.

Aspects of anatomy, proportion, and movement will be discussed along with the development of an Alla Prima technique that involves both scumbling and glazing. Learning to see is a selective endeavor. Understanding is an extension of our mind's eye. We will look at color as value and temperature as form.

There will be two models in one long pose. Steven will set up one in cool light and the other in warm light and discuss different lighting situations. Students will be able to choose to paint the portrait or the clothed figure.

The course will involve lectures, discussion of materials demos and critiques, on a daily basis. The artist talk or lecture will run in tandem with workshop and will be focused on the same subject matter as workshop.

This listing is for the lecture/demo only. See also: Constructing A Figure Painting - Color as Form (Full Workshop)

The artist talk or lecture will run in tandem with workshop and will be focused on the same subject matter as workshop.

Demonstration for Color Study & Figure Painting Workshop

Bring More Expressive Energy into Your Work

"Good paintings always exude an energy that flows from a harmonious balance of contrasts." -Hongnian Zhang

What is it that gives great paintings their startling impact—their “Chi”? The energy in master paintings flows from the artist's understanding of instinct and exaggeration. Exaggeration is personal and intuitive, and can be a frightening idea for a classically trained painter. Yet this elusive, instinctive Chi is intimately tied to the quality of experience we artists offer our viewers!

As an artist who also teaches, Mary has felt compelled to understand and explain this phenomenon. This search has led her to study with Chinese master artists, Zhang WenXin and Jove Wang; to excursions with Jove to China, Europe, and Russia. Jove introduced her to the idea of “Chi” in great paintings. It is he who convinced her we cannot “get there” through technique and reason alone; we must understand, develop, and employ our intuitive, inward vision.

In this demonstration and lecture Mary will share her journey and takeaways thus far as she moves closer to understanding what actually makes a masterpiece.

All levels welcome.