Still-life painting has always been a way for artists to tell painted stories of time, place and atmosphere. It is an incredible way to practice form and composition, explore light and shadow and tell personal stories using objects. It is also an amazing practice in deep looking and listening to the stories all around us in much the same ways Georgia O’Keefe did. 

We’ll spend a few minutes looking at still life paintings from the past to inspire what we’ll create and then use elements from nature along with our very own personal objects to create collaborative still life set-ups. We’ll experiment and practice mark-making and different watercolor techniques. We’ll magnify and min-ify (!) simple objects like pottery and glass, flowers and fruit, feathers, nests and rock, to work large and small —we’ll learn different techniques, explore color, wash and texture and bring in actual elements from nature to observe and imagine the stories they can bring to our work. 

Some watercolor experience is good but not necessary :) All materials provided.

Deborah Stein lives, paints and writes in NYC and the Embudo Valley in New Mexico. She teaches visual narrative workshops, runs twice a year artist residencies. Deborah studied the passing on of traditional arts with a toymaker family in Northern India, worked with NYC school kids as a museum educator at the Museum of Arts & Design and has traveled and taught alternative arts education workshops about seeing and translating the world in new ways for adults and children for a lifetime.

Saturday, July 8
2-5 pm
Class limit: 8

La Petite Ecole
717 Canyon Road Unit C
Santa Fe, NM 87501