WORKSHOPS ARE HELD ONLINE OR IN PERSON.
PLEASE READ EACH WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION FOR DETAILS.
Hours for online workshops: Most begin at 11 a.m. eastern time, US and Canada. We accommodate as many time zones as possible.
In-person workshops begin at 10 a.m. eastern time
Our online workshops are designed to be live and interactive.
We do not record online meetings, unless we are notified in advance that someone needs to miss a meeting. We will then record the meeting and send a link. Recordings will be available for 48 hours.
For online workshops, enrollment is typically limited to 16 participants.
For in-person workshops, enrollment is limited to 10 participants.
To register for a workshop, click the "REGISTER" link below the title.
Sign up for the mailing list to be notified of new workshops.
Contact us at blackpondstudio@gmail.com with questions, or to be added to a waiting list.
Workshops are listed in chronological order.
Scroll down for complete listings.
WITH TIM KENNEDY and EVE MANSDORF
AUGUST 8 - 12, 2022
Monday - Friday
(TOP: Eve Mansdorf BOTTOM: Tim Kennedy)
ONLINE WORKSHOP. Since the invention of the paint tube in the early 19th century artists have been able to enter the landscape in order to paint directly from it. Think of Monet at Argenteuil or Fairfield Porter in Maine. Like an explorer setting out on an expedition, part of the fun in painting the landscape is organizing yourself and your materials to be able to do it at all. Landscape painters eye each others easels and palettes the way fishermen size up competitors’ rods and reels. Efficiency of movement and paring down what one carries to the bare essentials is learned and prized. Each artist finds his or her own process and way of being in the landscape. These locations need not be far off and exotic locations, but even painting a motif a few blocks or miles from the artist’s studio requires logistical planning.
This workshop promotes finding a site where people and nature coexist whether it be an industrial site, a nearby state park, a public swimming pool or the outskirts of a suburban neighborhood. The vagaries produced by human interaction with the landscape are the real subject. Will that car still be here tomorrow? Will the crop be harvested before I finish my painting? Temporality can lend urgency and vitality to an on site painting. The observation of how a place is being used can influence how the painter sees the motif. Each participant will produce a series of small one day paintings that explore both the natural beauty of a place and the human use of that space as it may be presented through objects, activities or built structures. During the course of the workshop we will use Zoom to meet two to three times a day to share our work.
WITH JENNIFER POCHINSKI
AUGUST 5-7, 2022
Friday-Sunday
ONLINE WORKSHOP. Mixed media/collage can be a gateway to new ideas and processes. By adding ready-made elements, you can test ideas, achieve meaning, add richness, and develop a broader vocabulary in your painting practice — in an instant!
This is a short but intense project-based workshop. There is a strong physical and sculptural aspect of collage; ideas will be worked out literally using your hands.
SCHEDULE
FRIDAY PRESENTATION: 6 pm EST two-hour presentation and explanation of the exercise/project. Q and A. Both groups attend.
SATURDAY FIRST CRIT:
Group A 4-6 pm EST (1-3 PST)
Group B 6:30 - 8:30 EST (3:30-5:30 PST)
SUNDAY FINAL CRIT:
Group B 4-6 pm EST (1-3 PST)
Group A 6:30 - 8:30 EST (3:30-5:30 PST)
WITH ELIZABETH O'REILLY
IN PERSON AT BLACK POND
September 16-18, 2022
Friday-Sunday
Painting on location is challenging and exciting, but choosing a motif from the complexity of what’s out there can be intimidating. Working from locations in the vicinity of Black Pond Studio, we will work quickly from observation, translating that complexity into a manageable motif. Redefining what we see into light and dark, warm and cool, and understanding spatial cues will help students to find structure in the outdoors and create space on the rectangle.
Finding a motif is an important element of working en plein air, but the nuts and bolts of painting outside of the studio are also an integral part of this workshop. Students will learn how to set up an easel and lay out a palette in order to work on one-shot paintings. Demonstrations and critique will be included. If there is rain, we will work from the windows of Black Pond’s spacious barn. Working indoors on a still life will also be an option.
Participants are free to work in oils or watercolor, and all levels are welcome.
Lunches are included in the cost of the workshop.
WITH NANCY GRUSKIN
TUESDAYS
October 11
October 18
October 25
November 1
November 8
2022
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Eastern Time
ONLINE WORKSHOP Searching in the late 1970s for a subject matter that was neither representational nor wholly abstract, American painter Robert Zakanitch embraced ornamentation as an alternative entry into painting, a so-called “third door.” This online workshop will explore pattern and decoration through painting, printmaking, collage, and cardboard and papier-mâché constructions. Slide presentations and demos will introduce the exercises each week. As the workshop progresses, each participant will work toward creating their own installation that includes hand-made wallpaper, paintings and/or collages, and sculptures. Participants will post images of their work on Padlet for written feedback during the first four weeks of the workshop. We will look at Padlet together during our final Zoom meeting, for a group discussion of participants’ completed installations.
WITH MAUREEN NATHAN
WEDNESDAYS
October 12
October 19
October 26, 2022
Two meetings per day:
Eastern time
11 a.m.-1 p.m.
AND 3-4 p.m.
ONLINE. This workshop will introduce printmaking techniques that do not require a printing press. Methods will include intaglio and relief printing, together with collage; each process will be introduced by video demonstrations and slideshows. You will learn to print an edition, as well as create unique layered monoprints. Work will be shared on an online platform called Padlet, which will make it easy to discuss our experience and knowledge throughout the workshop. We will use non-toxic water-based inks and, where possible, recycled materials.
WITH PETER VAN DYCK
ONLINE WORKSHOP
MONDAYS
October 31
November 7
November 14
November 21
November 28
2022
11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Eastern time, US and Canada
Using pencil sketches, color studies, larger drawings and painting on location, we will build paintings of interior spaces from direct observation. Our goal will be to merge two different ways of organizing and depicting space in a painting: one will be through drawing the 3-dimensional, volumetric quality of the space; the other will be through finding large color relationships to express the movement of light through space. Experience in basic observational drawing as well as with oil and/or acrylic paint will be helpful.
WITH LUCY MacGILLIS
December 2-4, 2022
Friday-Sunday
In this intensive ONLINE painting class, we'll create our own oil paint from Italian pigments. Once we've created our full earth color palette, we'll do gradient studies in order to understand the colors we are working with. Next we'll sketch a composition of lemons in our respective studios. Finally we'll create a still life of lemons. Each of the three days will include group discussions based on the images uploaded by the participants, guided by Lucy MacGillis. Lectures on the color yellow in painting, the lemon in the history of painting and demos from MacGillis' studio in Italy will also be included.
Prior to the class, participants will receive the kit from Zecchi in Florence containing Fabriano oil painting paper, the pigments, linseed oil, and a palette knife.
The cost of materials from Zecchi is included in the workshop fee.
WITH MAUREEN NATHAN
March 3-5, 2023
Friday-Sunday
ONLINE WORKSHOP. This drawing workshop is about freeing up expectations and engaging in the process of discovery. Participants will undertake various exercises with the aim of generating unexpected and compelling outcomes, as well as finding the drawing vocabulary unique to each artist. This workshop is especially helpful to artists who feel they are becoming stylized in their approach and is equally suitable for those new to drawing.
WITH NANCY McCARTHY
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL
June 9-12, 2022
Thursday-Sunday
ONLINE WORKSHOP The striking contrasts of black and white, and the subtle differences between grays, will be the fuel for our images. First, using brushes with black ink on white paper, we will build compositions from shapes of black and white, with still life and the landscape as our sources. We will move into ink washes, then switch to white on black, and each day delve into more exercises using pens, cut paper, collage and block prints. Our aim is to generate a volume of drawings, from both observation and abstraction, which expand our visual vocabulary, sensitivity to value and shape, as well as compositional skills. We will use Zoom to meet as as group, view image presentations, and Padlet share and discuss work.
WITH LUCY MacGILLIS
June 24-26, 2022
Friday-Sunday
10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
IN PERSON. On site at Black Pond
FULLY VACCINATED
In this intensive 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 reduce 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.
WITH JENNIFER POCHINSKI
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL
August 19-21, 2022
Friday-Sunday
ONLINE WORKSHOP. Mixed media/collage can be a gateway to new ideas and processes. By adding ready-made elements, you can test ideas, achieve meaning, add richness, and develop a broader vocabulary in your painting practice — in an instant!
This is a short but intense project-based workshop. There is a strong physical and sculptural aspect of collage; ideas will be worked out literally using your hands.
SCHEDULE
FRIDAY PRESENTATION: 6 pm EST two-hour presentation and explanation of the exercise/project. Q and A. Both groups attend.
SATURDAY FIRST CRIT:
Group A 4-6 pm EST (1-3 PST)
Group B 6:30 - 8:30 EST (3:30-5:30 PST)
SUNDAY FINAL CRIT:
Group B 4-6 pm EST (1-3 PST)
Group A 6:30 - 8:30 EST (3:30-5:30 PST)
WITH NANCY McCARTHY
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL
IN PERSON AT BLACK POND STUDIO
In our air-conditioned studio
August 25-28, 2022
Thursday-Sunday
10 a.m.-4 p.m.
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 acrylic gouache on paper helps us understand how color functions and increase our personal color vocabulary. This workshop is meant for anyone working with color: painters, designers, architects, etc. WORKSHOP FEE INCLUDES LUNCHES.
WITH LUCY MacGILLIS
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL
NOVEMBER 11-13, 2022
Friday-Sunday
In this three-day ONLINE course via Zoom with Italy-based Lucy MacGillis, painters will look closely at three 500-year-old Italian Renaissance and early Baroque masterpieces investigating what makes them so powerful. Each day will begin with an introduction to the painter whose work we are studying that day and the context in which the painting in question was created. Using transcription, we will draw from these paintings, not copying, but searching for the brilliant uses of rhythm, duality, and repetition within the geometry of each. From Giorgione to the Baroque Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi we will explore a specific painting on paper and in a discussion. In the later part of each day, participants will create a painting sketch to better grasp the use of color in that day's masterpiece. We will conclude with a group critique of the studies and a discussion about the colors which were used to create the original paintings.
Each participant will receive a kit in the mail, prior to the course, containing the prints of the three paintings we will transcribe, as well as Fabriano drawing and primed paper measured in proportion to the works. Throughout the class there will be several demos from Lucy MacGillis' studio. THE COST OF THE KITS IS INCLUDED IN THE WORKSHOP PRICE.
WITH LUCY MacGILLIS
THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL
FIVE WEEKLY MEETINGS
January 3
January 10
January 17
January 24
January 31
2023
In this ONLINE class, we'll focus on the masterpieces of four female Italian painters, investigating what makes them so timelessly captivating. Using the method of transcription, we will draw from these paintings without copying them, but searching for the brilliant uses of rhythm, duality and repetition within the geometry of these compositions. We'll begin by looking at ancient Roman paintings, into the Renaissance to Plautilla Nelli, Sofonisba Anguissola, Fede Galizia, and then towards the baroque with Artemisia Gentileschi. In each session we will explore a specific painting at length in a group discussion over Zoom. After the introduction to each painting, participants will have a week to prepare a drawing transcription as well as a chromatic study created with oil paints, to better grasp the use of color in that day's masterpiece. MacGillis will present demos from her studio in Italy to show how she goes about mixing the colors in the paintings using a limited earth palette and palette knife.
Each participant will receive a kit in the mail, prior to the course, containing the prints of the five paintings we will transcribe as well as paper measured in proportion to the works. There will also be primed Fabriano paper provided for the color painting studies.
Work will be shared on an online platform.
THE COST OF THE KITS IS INCLUDED IN THE WORKSHOP PRICE.