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Contact us at blackpondstudio@gmail.com for our address.
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Sign up for the mailing list to be notified of new workshops.
Contact us at blackpondstudio@gmail.com for our address.
Scroll down for complete listings.
PHOTO AS CATALYST
WITH JANICE NOWINSKI
March 27-29, 2020
Friday-Sunday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL. Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the waiting list.
How can we best use the photograph as source material for paintings? In this workshop we will consider which information we glean from a photograph and how we transform that information into work that is personal. Where can the photo lead us in terms of memory, narrative, metaphor and invention? And how do the painter’s mark, color, and use of material contribute to the content? We will depart from purely perceptual painting and “paint the emotion awakened by what you see,” using photographs as a catalyst. This workshop is for experienced painters. Limited to ten participants.
March 27-29, 2020
Friday-Sunday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL. Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the waiting list.
How can we best use the photograph as source material for paintings? In this workshop we will consider which information we glean from a photograph and how we transform that information into work that is personal. Where can the photo lead us in terms of memory, narrative, metaphor and invention? And how do the painter’s mark, color, and use of material contribute to the content? We will depart from purely perceptual painting and “paint the emotion awakened by what you see,” using photographs as a catalyst. This workshop is for experienced painters. Limited to ten participants.
COLOR RULES
WITH NANCY McCARTHY
May 15-17, 2020
Friday-Sunday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL. Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the waiting list.
Color Rules! It does, absolutely, but there are NO rules, no formulas, no tricks. There is intention, getting color to say what you want it to say. In this intensive workshop we consider basic color concepts such as value, hue, and saturation and learn how to manipulate them to energize our work. Building color relationships with gouache on paper helps up understand how color functions and to build our personal color vocabulary. This workshop is meant for anyone working with color: painters, designers, architects, etc.
May 15-17, 2020
Friday-Sunday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL. Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the waiting list.
Color Rules! It does, absolutely, but there are NO rules, no formulas, no tricks. There is intention, getting color to say what you want it to say. In this intensive workshop we consider basic color concepts such as value, hue, and saturation and learn how to manipulate them to energize our work. Building color relationships with gouache on paper helps up understand how color functions and to build our personal color vocabulary. This workshop is meant for anyone working with color: painters, designers, architects, etc.
WATERCOLOR: BREAK NEW GROUND
WITH ELIZABETH O'REILLY
June 25-29, 2020
Thursday-Monday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL. Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the waiting list.
Expand your watercolor fluency by experimenting with value, color, mark making and scale. Through a variety of exercises and techniques including staining, texture, dry brush, wet on wet and accidents, you will become more aware of how to manipulate the medium while maintaining its fluidity. Multiple studies will be created using references from nature. Other exercises may include working large (to put our body motion into the strokes), working abstractly, and creating collages from students’ own drawings and paintings. Looking at images of contemporary watercolor will be included. Participants should have some previous experience with watercolor.
June 25-29, 2020
Thursday-Monday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL. Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the waiting list.
Expand your watercolor fluency by experimenting with value, color, mark making and scale. Through a variety of exercises and techniques including staining, texture, dry brush, wet on wet and accidents, you will become more aware of how to manipulate the medium while maintaining its fluidity. Multiple studies will be created using references from nature. Other exercises may include working large (to put our body motion into the strokes), working abstractly, and creating collages from students’ own drawings and paintings. Looking at images of contemporary watercolor will be included. Participants should have some previous experience with watercolor.
LINEAGE INTO PAINT
WITH CATHERINE KEHOE
July10-14, 2020
Friday-Tuesday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
Photos of ancestors — those we have known in life and those we can know only from the images — will be the sources for this workshop. These photos might trigger a narrative, imaginary or real. We might begin with an impulse for detail and description, a desire to imagine those we can know in no other way. The ultimate goal will be reduction and a search for how much is enough. By analyzing the images as designs in a rectangle, breaking down the pictorial elements through simplification and abstraction, we will build drawings and paintings that stand on their own. Mediums will include graphite, collage, acrylic and/or oil paint.
July10-14, 2020
Friday-Tuesday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
Photos of ancestors — those we have known in life and those we can know only from the images — will be the sources for this workshop. These photos might trigger a narrative, imaginary or real. We might begin with an impulse for detail and description, a desire to imagine those we can know in no other way. The ultimate goal will be reduction and a search for how much is enough. By analyzing the images as designs in a rectangle, breaking down the pictorial elements through simplification and abstraction, we will build drawings and paintings that stand on their own. Mediums will include graphite, collage, acrylic and/or oil paint.
PAINTING THE FIGURE WITH THE ITALIAN EARTH PALETTE
WITH LUCY MacGILLIS
July 19-21, 2020
Sunday-Tuesday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
In this intense three-day course, Lucy MacGillis shares her love for paint, beginning with its creation — mixing raw earth pigments from Italy with linseed oil. Working directly from observation of the model, participants learn not only how to create their own paint, but are guided in looking closely at the tones of the figure before them. By limiting the range of colors, painters use the relationships between colors to give them more force.
Using herculaneum and pozzuoli red, warm italian earth, yellow ochre, naples yellow, earth green, herculaneum blue, burnt and raw umber, roman black earth, and titanium white, participants are encouraged to paint with the palette knife via trial and error, mixing, placing the paint and scraping it off as needed — the result being a harmonious study of space, color and form.
Working directly from the observation of the nude model, participants are encouraged to simplify the figure into simple, carefully mixed planes of color.
On the each day there will be several fast studies as well as longer poses. Each day ends in a group critique including art historical examples, referring back to the Italian tradition of figure painting.
July 19-21, 2020
Sunday-Tuesday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
In this intense three-day course, Lucy MacGillis shares her love for paint, beginning with its creation — mixing raw earth pigments from Italy with linseed oil. Working directly from observation of the model, participants learn not only how to create their own paint, but are guided in looking closely at the tones of the figure before them. By limiting the range of colors, painters use the relationships between colors to give them more force.
Using herculaneum and pozzuoli red, warm italian earth, yellow ochre, naples yellow, earth green, herculaneum blue, burnt and raw umber, roman black earth, and titanium white, participants are encouraged to paint with the palette knife via trial and error, mixing, placing the paint and scraping it off as needed — the result being a harmonious study of space, color and form.
Working directly from the observation of the nude model, participants are encouraged to simplify the figure into simple, carefully mixed planes of color.
On the each day there will be several fast studies as well as longer poses. Each day ends in a group critique including art historical examples, referring back to the Italian tradition of figure painting.
BREAKING BARRIERS 1
WITH JENNIFER POCHINSKI
August 17-21, 2020
Monday-Friday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
Every time I walk into my studio and open the door, I am hoping I am a different person. I am hoping something different will happen.— Charles Garabedian
The workshops will be based on short exercises done on fugitive supports such as kraft paper/newsprint or paper for oils or primed cardboards. The time together will not be a ‘how to’ thing but more of a space to fail. Shorter exercises can lead us to hit on something new or find new courage — pushing past habits.
The goals: to learn to trust first instincts; to hone skills by painting what is directly observed — but without overthinking or second-guessing, rendering or decorating. It will be a week of unfiltered mark making, maybe some stretching into new territory which each painter can carry into their own practice. The week will start out painting objects/ still lifes but it is intended largely for figurative painters. We will be working from a model and photos. There will be lots group discussions and demos.
August 17-21, 2020
Monday-Friday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
Every time I walk into my studio and open the door, I am hoping I am a different person. I am hoping something different will happen.— Charles Garabedian
The workshops will be based on short exercises done on fugitive supports such as kraft paper/newsprint or paper for oils or primed cardboards. The time together will not be a ‘how to’ thing but more of a space to fail. Shorter exercises can lead us to hit on something new or find new courage — pushing past habits.
The goals: to learn to trust first instincts; to hone skills by painting what is directly observed — but without overthinking or second-guessing, rendering or decorating. It will be a week of unfiltered mark making, maybe some stretching into new territory which each painter can carry into their own practice. The week will start out painting objects/ still lifes but it is intended largely for figurative painters. We will be working from a model and photos. There will be lots group discussions and demos.
BREAKING BARRIERS 2
WITH JENNIFER POCHINSKI
August 24-28, 2020
Monday-Friday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
Every time I walk into my studio and open the door, I am hoping I am a different person. I am hoping something different will happen.— Charles Garabedian
The workshops will be based on short exercises done on fugitive supports such as kraft paper/newsprint or paper for oils or primed cardboards. The time together will not be a ‘how to’ thing but more of a space to fail. Shorter exercises can lead us to hit on something new or find new courage — pushing past habits.
The goals: to learn to trust first instincts; to hone skills by painting what is directly observed — but without overthinking or second-guessing, rendering or decorating. It will be a week of unfiltered mark making, maybe some stretching into new territory which each painter can carry into their own practice. The week will start out painting objects/ still lifes but it is intended largely for figurative painters. We will be working from a model and photos. There will be lots group discussions and demos.
August 24-28, 2020
Monday-Friday
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL.
Please email blackpondstudio@gmail.com to be added to the wait list.
Every time I walk into my studio and open the door, I am hoping I am a different person. I am hoping something different will happen.— Charles Garabedian
The workshops will be based on short exercises done on fugitive supports such as kraft paper/newsprint or paper for oils or primed cardboards. The time together will not be a ‘how to’ thing but more of a space to fail. Shorter exercises can lead us to hit on something new or find new courage — pushing past habits.
The goals: to learn to trust first instincts; to hone skills by painting what is directly observed — but without overthinking or second-guessing, rendering or decorating. It will be a week of unfiltered mark making, maybe some stretching into new territory which each painter can carry into their own practice. The week will start out painting objects/ still lifes but it is intended largely for figurative painters. We will be working from a model and photos. There will be lots group discussions and demos.
THE LANGUAGE OF ABSTRACTION
WITH DEBORAH ZLOTSKY
November 9-11, 2020
Monday-Wednesday
Through an integrative, critical, and sequential process, participants will create a series of new works through the development of distinctive and individualized abstract languages. Varied drawing experiences will help participants build vocabulary, create space and structure, and investigate what’s possible. The 3-day drawing workshop will become an experimental lab to generate new work informed by presentations, discussions, visual strategizing, and intensive studio exploration.
November 9-11, 2020
Monday-Wednesday
Through an integrative, critical, and sequential process, participants will create a series of new works through the development of distinctive and individualized abstract languages. Varied drawing experiences will help participants build vocabulary, create space and structure, and investigate what’s possible. The 3-day drawing workshop will become an experimental lab to generate new work informed by presentations, discussions, visual strategizing, and intensive studio exploration.
DRAWING MARATHON
WITH GWEN STRAHLE
MARCH 27-30, 2021
Saturday-Tuesday
Drawing can be painterly, whether using charcoal, pencil or ink. This workshop will stimulate and maintain a continuous flow of drawing energy and examination. We will work from a still-life set-up that includes the model, using various materials and approaches. Exercises will be woven into the structure, including drawing from memory, gestures, drawing from other members of the studio. We will build abstractly to serve observation — drawing, re-drawing, re-thinking, re-seeing, re-working, to pull the drawing out from the inside, through process. Let’s make changes in order to dig deeper into the drawing experience, and provide opportunity for new invention. And, of course, it’s a marathon, so non-stop drawing...
Price includes model fee.
MARCH 27-30, 2021
Saturday-Tuesday
Drawing can be painterly, whether using charcoal, pencil or ink. This workshop will stimulate and maintain a continuous flow of drawing energy and examination. We will work from a still-life set-up that includes the model, using various materials and approaches. Exercises will be woven into the structure, including drawing from memory, gestures, drawing from other members of the studio. We will build abstractly to serve observation — drawing, re-drawing, re-thinking, re-seeing, re-working, to pull the drawing out from the inside, through process. Let’s make changes in order to dig deeper into the drawing experience, and provide opportunity for new invention. And, of course, it’s a marathon, so non-stop drawing...
Price includes model fee.