Class Content: Have fun combining watercolor with other media for a colorful painting of a blue heron or subject of your choice. Use basic watercolor techniques including wet on wet, dry brush, masking and negative painting along with ink, oil pastel, white acrylic and collage for added detail and texture. Different color schemes and/or subjects can be explored to complete two finished paintings. Demos along with individual help will encourage everyone in their own artistic expression.

Supply List: Click here to view the supply list

Biography: Martha Kisling has over thirty years experience painting in the exciting and spontaneous medium of watercolor. She also enjoys experimenting with acrylics, mixed media, collage and batik. She has taught painting classes and workshops while living in Colorado, South Carolina and now Tennessee and enjoys sharing her personal creative discoveries while encouraging students to develop their own artistic expression. Her original artwork has been exhibited in art shows and galleries.

Instructor Website: Martha Kisling Colorful Contemporary Art

Workshop Content: In this fun-filled workshop, you’ll make a medium-sized acrylic painting on canvas, in the unique, vibrant style of the artist, using her award-winning acrylic painting process. Bold colors, various shapes derived from nature, lots of “underdrawings” and little background detail will fill your canvas. Your piece will attract attention at first glance, then give the viewer a secondary experience up close.

This class is for all levels, your painting can be as simple or complex as you wish – the artist will give options for modifying along the way. A demonstration of the basics of using acrylic paint will be included in the beginning of the class, as a tool for beginners and a review (including tips the instructor has gleaned from 30+ years of painting) for those who are already familiar with acrylic painting. Canvas prep, mixing paint, brushwork, working with “mistakes” and much more will be covered.

Emphasis will be on making a piece that is unique and meaningful to you so you’ll bring in photos of nature – either that you found online or in publications, or that you took yourself with camera or phone, which will be used to develop shape, composition and color. No big thinking about this part – we just want lots of various things you like. (More details on this in the supply list.) Along the way through the exciting painting process, we will learn about composition, form, space, repetition, focal point, line, movement, value and color. You’ll learn to be loose with gestures, and free your mind while painting. The instructor is hands-on and will meet you where you’re at.

The artist is available via email from now until the class begins to answer any questions.

Supply List: Click here to view the supply list

Biography: Kathleen Murphy Willer is an award winning artist who has been painting professionally for 30 years. Her love of art and drawing was with her always – she was the girl who got in trouble for drawing on the walls at home and on the desks at school. After earning a degree in art, then working as a graphic designer for a few years in her 20s, she made the jump to self-employment as a fine artist and never looked back. Crisscrossing the country in her art van, she exhibits in 15-20 juried fine art shows each year, winning many awards, and being selected as the poster artist for several nationally renowned shows. Her work has also been shown in group exhibitions and galleries in the United States and she has collectors on five continents. Custom work includes many murals, including a very large piece at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. Her bachelor’s degree in art is from Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, WI, and she lives just outside of Milwaukee in Menomonee Falls with her family.

Instructor Website: www.kathleenmurphywiller.com