Off to Work 12 x 16 Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello |
Over the past three weekends I have taken 3 painting workshops with different instructors.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing them that closely to anyone, especially not for beginners, but it just so
happened that 3 artists whose work I admire and have been on my workshop
“bucket list” all were offering workshops in driving distance of my area, at a
time when my schedule was open. I have no classes of my own scheduled
for June and my husband is traveling so I have taken this month to be
completely immersed in art and learning.
With this experience fresh in my mind, and having both
taught and taken many workshops both near and far over the past 20 years, I
thought I’d share some tips on how to get the most out of your workshop
experience. I've divided my suggestions and lessons learned over 4 posts. Today will be before you decide on a workshop. then in my next 3 posts I'll share how to get the most out of a workshop before, during and even after the workshop is over. Hope you'll follow along and share with artist friends who might find this information useful.
1) Before deciding to register:
Start with your intentions. Why do you want to take a
workshop? Don’t pick a workshop just because that everyone seems to be
following that instructor right now. Be more selective and identify who might
make the biggest contribution to your next level of growth as an artist.
At different
phases of my artistic development I had different goals. In the early days, I
was looking for basic techniques and people whose style and subject matter
seemed to be similar to what I thought I was interested in. Later on I actually
took some workshops from people who had a radically different approach, just to
push myself out of my comfort zone and try something totally different.
Sometimes I go to workshops as a jump start for motivation or even just an
opportunity to travel somewhere I’ve always wanted to go (e.g. Bermuda- thank
you Mel Stabin!). I have found it really useful to take a workshop in January
to get my momentum going again after the holiday break when my painting rhythm
often gets interrupted. I also have an area of focus in my mind in terms of my
“growing edge”. Where do I want to focus to advance my development? Lately my
focus has been oil painting and specifically attention to color temperature and
brushwork. So no surprise, the instructors I have studied with over the past few
years excel in those areas.
Also, look on line- not only at the instructor’s site to see
their work and philosophy, what is important to them, but also Google their
name and see if other artists that have taken their workshops have shared their
experiences on their blogs. I have found artists very helpful on providing
feedback on workshops; so don’t be shy about contacting them. Try to get
references from people who have actually taken the workshop. There are some
amazing artists who may not be as effective in communicating the why’s and
how’s to others.
Find out the intended audience. Is the workshop targeted
primarily at beginning artists, what is the instructor's approach- can you get
an idea of how much demonstration time vs. painting time so you know what to
expect? You may even want to find out how many students are expected to be in the workshop. I've been surprised to walk into a couple that had 30 or more students, so not a lot of time for the instructor to work with you individually if that's something that's important to you.
Stayed tuned for Part II in my next post. To be continued......
Do you have any other tips that have been helpful to you in selecting an art workshop that you'd like to share? Please feel free to leave a comment.
Stayed tuned for Part II in my next post. To be continued......
Do you have any other tips that have been helpful to you in selecting an art workshop that you'd like to share? Please feel free to leave a comment.
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