With a live model

During the first morning an accurate portrait drawing will be done. The remaining sessions will be applying watercolor to the portrait drawing. There will be instructor demonstrations on the progression of the painting. We will discuss warm/cool colors and light/dark values. The model will keep the same pose throughout the class. Supply list will be sent upon registration.

Autumn is one of the best times to be out on location studying the landscape as it becomes saturated in color! This fall, Bridget is offering a weekend workshop for students to study the landscape "en plein air." There will be a lecture/demo both mornings where Bridget will talk about seeing color as value, mixing color and a discussion on how to evaluate color intensity based on the effect of light. In the afternoons, Bridget will work with students at their easels. Students of all skill levels are welcome to participate in this workshop, though some experience painting in oil will be helpful for this class. 

This is a 3-day weekend workshop where we study ideas and plan pictures that can grab and captivate our audience. We'll be exploring composition through generating copious amounts of thumbnail sketches; refining, changing, and enhancing our ideas through drawing; and, finally, developing a large loose sketch, based on the previous explorative sketches, to take home for a finished painting.

Fundamentals of composition, value, and picture design are stressed throughout. This is where we discover who we are: marks on paper, with the barest minimum of lines, will flush out and flesh out an idea that lingers just beneath our awareness. As students progress from thumbnails to sketches, we'll also touch on when and how to use reference. On the third day Greg will demonstrate color comps, and students will begin to explore rough color sketches to aid them in the development of their picture beyond this workshop.

Much frustration and head-scratching ensues while we struggle to do our best, but Greg hasn't had a student yet that hasn't come away with an epiphany or two about their work. And we'll have lots of fun in the discovery process. Come with no fear—you're in good hands.

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.

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.

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.