This fall and winter I’m offering a series of online painting workshops — PAINTING NOW. Our two group sessions will be conducted via Zoom on consecutive Saturdays (11 AM – 5 PM ET), with a one-to-one meeting with each workshop participant during the week between group sessions. 

The first Saturday of each workshop is focused on learning from several artists who are working in dialogue with the workshop’s theme. Using prompts drawn from these artists’ work (or alternatively pursuing our own projects), we’ll engage their thinking in our picture making. During the week, participants will be encouraged to continue working on their own (as time allows) and everyone will schedule an individual consultation with the instructor. The following Saturday is focused on additional consideration of artists relevant to the workshop theme, continued studio work, and a final group review of the week’s work.

Participants don’t need to have a studio, but should have a workspace that has internet or data access for a Zoom video conference. The workshops are open to artists of all skill levels, who are interested in oil painting, acrylic painting, drawing, watercolor, collage, or multimedia approaches. Ideally you should have some familiarity with the materials with which you choose to work as material demonstrations are somewhat awkward over Zoom. But we’ll do our best to accommodate everyone.

REGISTRATION: Each workshop is $250. You can register by either sending me a Venmo payment to @Peter-Hocking-artist or a check to Peter Hocking, PO Box 672, Truro MA 02666. Please note the workshop title with your payment. Once you’ve registered, I’ll send a confirmation email. A few days prior to the workshop, I’ll send a Zoom link and some workshop resources. Email me with questions — phocking@gmail.com.

_______________________________

PAINTING NOW: Landscape  — October 15-22

Painting NOW: Landscape is designed to embrace a spirit of engaging with the current ideas, methods and strategies for making landscape painting. It will begin with consideration of work by contemporary landscape painters and move toward a discussion of the strategies they employ. In our studio work, we’ll aim to expand our painting vocabulary as we develop a modest body of new artworks connected to a place of importance to you. This workshop is designed to meet the needs of learners at all levels. Students working with any painting media — including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and pastel — are welcome. Our two group sessions will be conducted via Zoom on consecutive Saturdays, with a one-to-one meeting between each student and the instructor during the week between group sessions.

_______________________________

PAINTING NOW: Painting Our Lives  — November 12-19

Considering some of the most vital painting being made today, this workshop will begin with a consideration of the nature of narrative, context (landscape), and the role of the figure in contemporary painting. In our studio work, we’ll aim to expand our painting vocabulary as we develop a suite of new artworks inspired by the people, stories, social context, places, and experiences we carry as individual artists. This workshop is designed to meet the needs of learners at all levels. Students working with any painting media — including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and pastel — are welcome. Our two group sessions will be conducted via Zoom on consecutive Saturdays, with a one-to-one meeting between each student and the instructor during the week between group sessions.

_______________________________

PAINTING NOW: Serial / Poetic  — December 10-17

By making series of paintings in dialogue with the same subject, idea, or process, Painting NOW: Serial / Poetic contemplates the idea that by returning to a motif we can see beyond surfaces, toward the unparaphrasable and poetic. Participants are welcome to work with landscape, still life, self-portraiture, or abstraction. The course is designed for learners of all levels who are interested in any painting medium. Our two group sessions will be conducted via Zoom on consecutive Saturdays, with a one-to-one meeting between each student and the instructor during the week between group sessions.

_______________________________

PAINTING NOW: The Autobiographical Figure — January 21-28

The self-portrait is one thing, but figurative painters also build a complex personal story by drawing directly from figures they encounter or by creating figurative persona that stand in for themselves. This workshop will look at artists exploring the experience of race, queerness and gender — as well as the quotidian poetics of everyday life. We’ll work with the figure — beginning with one’s own body and considering that body in relation to other bodies. By using mirrors, reference photographs, family photo albums, and other visual media, this workshop is focused on creating a series of images that explore, interrogate and mythologize personal history. Artists we will consider in the workshop— among others — are Jennifer Packer, Jennie Saville, Elizabeth Peyton, Hernan Bas, Celia Paul, Henry Taylor, Maggie Hambling, Noah Davis, Fairfield Porter, Chitra Ganesh, David Wojnarowicz, Attila Richard Lukacs, Jochen Klein, Kehinde Wiley, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Zachari Logan, John Kirby, Anthony Cudahy, Doron Langberg, and Salman Toor. We will not be using a live model in this workshop. Our two group sessions will be conducted via Zoom on consecutive Saturdays, with a one-to-one meeting between each student and the instructor during the week between group sessions.

***

Pete Hocking is a painter & writer on Cape Cod. He teaches at Rhode Island School of Design and Gratz College. For nearly twenty years he taught in Goddard College’s MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts program. He was director of RISD’s Office of Public Engagement (2007-11), and Associate Dean of the College & Director of the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University (1988-2005). He’s a founding board member of Provincetown Commons, an economic development center for the creative economy. He’s represented by Four Eleven Gallery in Provincetown, MA.

_{Pete Hocking, I’m Gonna Soak Up The Sun, 36 x 36 inches, oil on panel.}