registration deadline

I'm getting really excited about the upcoming workshop that I'm teaching at Rochester Art Supply next month, in Rochester NY. The dates for the class are the weekend of April 18-19, and registration closes next week, March 25. I'll be teaching techniques for using cold wax and oils to build up color and texture layers on multiple panels. If you are interested in attending, please click on the workshop link above for more details about the class, fees. Registration is limited but there are currently spaces for a few more people.

It will be a small group and I'm asking that participants have prior experience with oils, and either a background in abstraction or willingness to experiment. I'm expecting we'll pack a lot into 2 days, and ideas will flow.

A couple of people have asked me why I want to do this, to share my techniques with other artists--as if I have secrets to guard. They have asked me in a tone that borders on kidding, but it's a legitimate question, really. When I was first invited to do this workshop, to teach techniques that I have spent years developing, I will admit to some hesitation--mainly because I cringe at the idea of technique as an end to itself. When the point of a workshop is to say "here's how to paint like me" I don't think anyone really benefits--especially not the students, since just appropriating an instructor's technique leads to shallow work.

Instead, I expect that the techniques I teach will be added to the complex, personal repertoire of tools and ideas that each artist is already using. Technique is nothing more than means to an end, and true artists work in individualized ways with unique results. I look forward to seeing what happens as the participating artists carry the techniques I teach forward in their own work.

(The small painting above is as yet untitled--8"x6"--and recently completed.)