How DO they do that?! Are you uncertain, or do you have questions about how to create a picture of things that don’t exist? This could be a posthumous portrait, a picture of something historical, or something completely fictional. You know you need references but don’t know what to do. In this workshop, we’ll share information, tips, and tricks about how to know what kind and how much reference you need, pictorial as well as legal considerations, what kind of reference is available to artists, and ways to shoot your own reference by either working with a photographer who has the ideal gear, or using what you have available if you have budget and/or time constraints. Come with questions! On Friday there will be a presentation and demonstration at The Atelier. For attendees taking the full workshop, please come with rough sketches. Please be prepared to stay past 4PM so we may talk with you about your sketches so you have an idea of what you'll need to prepare for the rest of the workshop. Please consider these things: any special clothing or costuming you may need; what is the setting, time of day, indoor or outdoor lighting; props that may be needed to fill in your sketch. If need be, you are welcome to bring a friend or hire your own model for the photo studio portion of the workshop, otherwise we will rely on fellow attendees or yourself to model for photo reference. On Saturday and Sunday, the hands-on portion will be at David's photography studio. During the hands-on portion, attendees will get to capture reference based on their sketches.

Experience our full-time program in a week-long workshop.

Students begin by drawing a plaster cast or still life in charcoal, developing their ability to render accurate proportions and value relationships. As students progress, they are introduced to the fundamentals of oil and/or pastel techniques, composition and color.

Experience our full-time program in a week-long workshop. Choose from morning basic drawing, afternoon life drawing, or both.

Life drawing is at the core of any serious program of fine arts. In the class, students draw from the figure in pencil. Each drawing is created over a period of several sessions, developing the student's eye for accurate proportions, gesture and anatomy.

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.

In this 3-day workshop students will learn the fundamentals of incorporating white chalk into their figurative drawing toolbox. By building light shapes with chalk we are able to explore the planar development of light masses while following the flow of light falling across the figure. Drawing will be done on toned paper, teaching students to identify the middle value range from which to key tonal relationships both up and down the value scale. By the end of the workshop, students will have a stronger understanding of the ever-elusive and incredibly subtle 'mid-value' range.

Develop a portrait in watercolor on one of two papers: cold press or hot press. Learn how each paper influences the medium and the finished look. The traditional cold-press method will start with a careful drawing, an underpainting, and then the base levels of color. The hot-press method will be more loose and spontaneous. Color will be a focus, using a limited palette of colors and transparent washes. Students will not finish a portrait but rather will be introduced to a technical process on how to start the painting. With more experience the finish will come naturally. Stuart will demonstrate each morning on his own painting. Afternoons will be for students to work from a live portrait model. Careful drawing will be a big part of this class.

This workshop will be a process and preliminary work focused class that will take place over the course of two weekends. The objective of the workshop will be the creation of preliminary work needed to execute a finished outdoor composition involving a clothed figure. Two Saturday afternoons will be spent out “in the field” working from a live model to create sketches, develop color studies, and gather reference images (photographs). Two Sunday afternoons will be spent working in-studio from the created reference materials to develop a well thought out, smaller scale, full-color composition. The goal by the end of the workshop will be for students to have on-hand the necessary preliminary work and knowledge to create a finished outdoor figurative composition back in their own studios.

Andy will contact the students closer to the time of the workshop to briefly go over the supply list and location for the outdoor portion of the workshop.

Dates: Saturday–Sunday, May 24–25 and Saturday–Sunday, May 31 – June 1
Length: 4 days
Time: 1:00pm–5:00pm

If you'd like to learn more about the convenience and possibilities of digital tools like Photoshop, then this workshop is for you. Christine will teach you some of the essential digital skills she uses for her digital and traditional art making. Learn about different color modes for making art for print or on screen, “frankensteining” your reference, using a pencil drawing as a base for a digital painting, altering your sketch digitally to explore composition and value design, and drawing and painting digitally. We will not be using any AI/ML image generation tools. You will also be given suggestions to continue to practice on your own. About a week before the workshop, registrants will receive access to the workshop files.

The majority of our projects will be done using Photoshop. To avoid getting locked into a year-long Photoshop subscription, I recommend using the 7-day free trial of Photoshop for this workshop. We'll also look at alternatives to Photoshop that cost less.

Please direct questions to Christine.Mitzuk@TheAtelier.org

Some technical assistance will be available. The workshop does not include any software or hardware.