Alla prima painting asks you to answer what is in front of you before the mind can explain it away. Working from life, students learn to reduce a simple subject to its essentials and set it down in a single, unhesitating gesture. The work is one of clear seeing and honest response: direct observation, decisive brushwork, and color felt rather than calculated. Students are encouraged to paint the spirit of a subject rather than its detail - to find beauty in something and express it before the hand grows cautious and the painting closes in on itself. Each four-hour session moves through demonstration, lecture, and considered critique. All levels are welcome, though some experience with oil is required.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Georganna Lenssen
Cost: $450
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This workshop will consider the idea of approaching still life not as a collection of objects, but as a landscape. By shifting focus away from describing things and toward spatial relationships, atmosphere, movement and structure, we will discover new possibilities for observation and interpretation. The goal is not to disguise the still life as a landscape, but to use the visual language of landscape painting to deepen engagement with what is in front of us.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Gillian Wainwright
Cost: $395
Sponsor: Cerulean Arts Gallery and Studio
Website, email, 267-514-8647

Watercolor is the perfect medium for capturing the jewel-like tones and gradients of color in autumn’s changing leaves and abundant harvests. Learn to preserve the season’s rich textures and tapestries of color by exploring a variety of paint mixing and application techniques while working from natural forms. This workshop will include demonstrations of wet-into-wet and dry-brush techniques and one-on-one instruction. All experience levels welcome.
 
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Linda Gist
Cost: $195
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Website, email, 215-972-7632

Don’t fall for the fallacy that you have to have “talent” to draw! Drawing is a skill like any other. You start and make a lot of mistakes, and with time and practice, you get better. We’ll begin at the beginning. We’ll get familiar and comfortable with a range of pencils and erasers. We’ll do simple exercises to start sharpening your ability to see critically. You’ll learn how to translate what you see to lines on the page. You’ll look for shapes, angles, and distances. Then we’ll look at what helps define an object in space, and how to use shading to make an object look three-dimensional on a two-dimensional surface. Come ready to have fun and gain confidence!
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Mamie Duff
Cost: $205
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Discover the expressive world of pastel with artist Barbara Berry. Known for her emphasis on suggestion rather than precise detail, Barbara guides students on a journey of creative interpretation—inviting both beginners and seasoned artists to explore the rich possibilities of soft pastels. Through dynamic in-class still life setups and personal photographic references of landscapes, participants will learn to capture atmosphere, emotion, and form with bold color and evocative strokes.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Barbara Berry
Cost: $300
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Workshop participants will begin by learning to handle watercolor materials: papers, paints, brushes, palettes, and more. From the bold application of washes to fine detail, we’ll explore specifics: how to begin a watercolor and how to conclude a work, wet-in-wet to dry-brush, what to put in and what to leave out. The skillful use of the elements of composition and the simplification of form will provide a means to achieving dynamic results. We’ll also explore ways of creating a sense of light and mood in a watercolor, through the use of structured tone. The class will be looking at the watercolors by J. S. Sargent, Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth critically. Students will work from still-life, and photos to start.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Ernie Norcia
Cost: $250
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

During this 2-day workshop, participants will explore approaches to developing and emphasizing abstract relationships in a painting based on direct observation. The instructor will work with students to set up their own still life, and cover topics such as color mixing, value relationships and framing the scene/composing. We will search for formal abstract relationships such as alignments, pathways through the space, as well as color and value design. There will be a focus on creating a simple, but sophisticated still-life arrangement. The emphasis will be on the emergence of the abstract structure of the painting rather than on traditional techniques or skills. A broad range of painting styles and skill levels are welcome. Some basic familiarity with oil paint is recommended.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Ed Praybe
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

The convincing depiction of form in three-dimensional space is one of the great conceptual breakthroughs in Western art. This class will begin by drawing items from still life on toned paper. How do you begin a drawing, and when do you stop? We will explore physical viewpoint, composition and the rendering of light and shadow to create mood and feeling. Recreate what you see with power and fresh vision. The goal is to build a drawing vocabulary that communicates your thoughts and feelings. The class will include demonstrations, discussions of masterworks (traditional and contemporary) and thoughtful feedback on class work. The drawing participants will discover this to be a valuable resource for more advanced work in drawing and painting.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Ernie Norcia
Cost: $300
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Through demos, lectures and personal instruction you will paint from life using your own personal still life set ups. Common problems such as composition, subject matter, lighting, color mixing and material choices will be covered.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Jon Redmond
Cost: $300
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

During this one-day intensive workshop, Beth shares her unique technique with students. Beth will do a demo and show how she uses photography and simple apps on her phone to simplify forms enhance value and emphasize composition. She will also discuss how to pick objects that make an exciting still life set up. Students are encouraged to use water mixable (soluble) oils to get the most out of the workshop. 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

We will dive into the all important painting issue of figuring out how to successfully mix colors and properly use your materials to express vision. In depth demos and discussions on color temperature, value relationships, paint handling, color choices and color mixing. Morning demos and afternoon instruction while painting from life.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Jon Redmond
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This course invites painters to work directly from life rather than from assumptions or formulas. Using simple, tangible subjects—such as fruit or flowers—students learn to slow down, truly look, and respond to what is actually in front of them. The course emphasizes seeing the whole before the parts—establishing large relationships, proportion, and spatial order before attending to refinement. Color, pigment characteristics, and color mixing are addressed throughout as essential tools for clarity and expression. This class is ideal for painters who want their work to feel more confident, cohesive, and alive—and who are ready to trust their eyes, enjoy the process, and paint with clear, purposeful strokes.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Georganna Lenssen
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Working from still-life we will develop a vocabulary for clearer color thinking, and skills in seeing and using the subtle color changes in white. Color is a perceptual event: a sensation, not a theory. White, as the brightest and highest value, is the master of all the other colors. How does a painter become a colorist? It is not about using bright colors but about handling nuances and seeing color relationships, especially in the use of whites. Those subtle color changes require heightened sensitivity to all aspects of color; value, harmony and complementary, along with careful observation and response, and understanding how color and light function in both human vision and in paint.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Maggie Siner
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

Because drapery captures gravity, weight and movement, it does a great deal of the work in making a convincing dynamic composition. Drapery can be manipulated and altered in ways that bodies can never be and yet define the forms of the body underneath. As it covers it also reveals. Fabric retains the gesture of movement, giving life to static forms. Changes of color on each turning plane are subtle, beautiful, and completely dependent on fabric texture. This gives tactile specificity for the sense of touch. Fabric suggests content, drama. Working from visual perception and studying light relationships we will use both still life and figure to simplify and extract the essentials of form and gesture for a unified and dramatic whole.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Maggie Siner
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553

This workshop will focus on working though the complexities of oil painting while studying the light, form and space of a small scaled still life. Demonstrations will cover: Subject choices, material choices, under-paintings, direct and indirect oil techniques. Intense personal instruction is augmented with class discussions on historical and contemporary artists.
 
Location: Wayne, Pennsylvania
Instructor: Jon Redmond
Sponsor: Wayne Art Center
Website, email, 610-688-3553