Materials, Techniques and Experiments

Sign up 3 days prior to class; after that, check availability.
Materials: Bring your sketchbook.

Artist Catherine Richardson will present a single-day workshop aimed at fine artists of all levels, presenting them with new and exciting methods with which to improve their painting and mark-making techniques, helping to transform, diversify, and expand their existing artistic practice. Students will be encouraged to push the boundaries of their own work and work both collaboratively and individually to stretch their skills.

The course will enable students to learn and practice techniques with which they may not have previously experimented. Each day will begin with a series of exercises designed to loosen and realign methods of approaching mark-making.

Richardson grew up near the Moors and Dales of northern England and attended Art College in London for her BFA. After graduating with an MFA from John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, CA, she was awarded the Sonoma County Emerging Artist Award and twice nominated for the prestigious Eureka Fellowship.

About her work, Richardson says, “the context of landscape and the untamed rural, juxtaposed with our urban domain and its evolving culture are the usual topics of my work. Painting is my method of weaving my contemplations and curiosities. Inevitably I make reference to our daily myopic tendencies and how it pales against the grandeur of earth’s geological cadence and structure. Also I’m drawn to history of civilizations and mysteries within landscapes. The gentle “scapes” of my native England and the magnificent landforms in California create a propensity to fluctuation between visions of beauty and emotions of displacement. Painting ignites dialogue and as I work I develop relationship with the piece.”