CLASSES & WORKSHOPS
January Painting School with Laura Wooten
The Painting School - January Session
Quality instruction + one-on-one guidance
Studio space in our historic downtown loft
Four weekly sessions, small class sizes
Join Laura Wooten for beginning or intermediate level oil painting class where you'll explore the fundamentals of this timeless medium. Over the course of the class, you'll learn essential techniques such building a palette, layering, and brushwork, while creating your own beautiful work of art. Laura's step-by-step guidance and personalized instruction ensure a supportive environment for artists of all skill levels. Whether you're picking up a brush for the first time or looking to refine your skills, these sessions are the perfect introduction to the world of oil painting.
Learn to paint with Laura Wooten - Session I
When: Session I - January 8, 15, 22, 29
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Level II Oils with Laura Wooten - Session II
When: Session II - January 9, 16, 23, 30
Where: 114 Old Preston Avenue, Charlottesville, VA
Time: 9:00 am - 3:00 pm (morning instruction and exercises, afternoon open studio)
Registration: $450/ session.
Email : lisa@phaetongallery.com
Space is limited to 8 participants per session.
Yellow Mountain Plein Air with Laura Wooten
September 25 - 27
Yellow Mountain Plein Air, our third annual plein air workshop in Batesville at Portaferry Farm, will begin Wednesday, September 25, and conclude with a fall lunch and review on the 27th. Laura will teach about working with an easy palette and limited materials to find joy in outdoor painting. In addition to a number of special views of fields, forests, ponds, Humpback Rocks, and an early 1900’s barnyard, each student will have a large workspace inside the party barn in case of inclement weather and for leaving work and materials securely overnight.
Whether you are an experienced artist or a curious beginner, you'll benefit from the unique opportunity to engage with nature's early autumn color and enhance your observational skills. The class emphasizes the importance of adapting to the environment, making every brushstroke a response to the landscape's immediate sensations.
Come ready to embrace the elements and discover how working outdoors can inspire and elevate your artistic practice. Enjoy the fresh air, the sounds of nature, and the camaraderie of fellow artists as you create memorable works of art in a picturesque setting.
FULL with a waitlist. Please inquire by email to lisa@phaetongallery.com
November 14, November 19 & 20
Lessons from Bonnard. Delve into Pierre Bonnard's distinctive approach to color and composition, learning to capture familiar spaces' warmth and personal touch. The workshop will guide you in transforming photographs and studies of your favorite room into a captivating work of art, echoing Bonnard's process and methodology of blending rich color and atmospheric light. This unique workshop invites you to explore Bonnard's masterful depiction of intimate interiors and vibrant domestic scenes.
We will begin with a field trip to the VMFA in Richmond on Thursday, November 14, with a 2:00 pm departure from Phaeton Gallery (transportation provided). Laura, a thoughtful follower and student of Pierre Bonnard's work, will offer a walkthrough of the VMFA's Bonnard collection followed by an early dinner and a 6:30 - 7:30 lecture with Dr. George Shackelford, Deputy Director of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and author of Bonnard's Worlds.
Working independently at home, students will document a curated interior scene of their own personal space through sketches and photos. On November 19 and 20, students will work with Laura in the Phaeton Gallery Studio, developing one interior composition in oil on canvas. We will work from our prepared source materials, learning to combine observation, memory, and invention. Formal elements of color, composition, space, and perspective will be explored, alongside the rich expressive possibilities of the Post-Impressionist ideology.
“Color was Bonnard’s arbitrator of emotion but it was also his arbitrator of space. For years, Bonnard painted the rooms of his childhood home; later, after he had married de Méligny, he painted the rooms of their shared home in Le Cannet in the South of France. These rooms were “analogues of human experience.”
Excerpt from “You’ll Never Know Yourself: Bonnard and the Color of Memory” (The Paris Review)
By Cody Delistraty, March 13, 2019
The fees for this workshop include a copy of Lucy Whalen's "Beyond Vision," as Laura will have some reading 'homework 'over the weekend of the 15th.
FULL with waitlist. Please email lisa@phaetongallery.com for more information.
Laura Wooten - Oil Painting
March 20 & 21, 2024
(FULL WITH WAITLIST)
PLANTSCAPES: A Perceptual Painting Immersion with Laura Wooten
Join Charlottesville artist, Laura Wooten, for a two-day immersive oil painting experience. Working from observation with arrangements of plants and flowers, we will build foundational skills while exploring color, light, shape, composition, and mark-making. The beauty and complexity of nature will be our muse as we learn to simplify forms, untangle the parts from the whole, and create dynamic paintings that reflect a powerful and personalized visual language. Students will learn a framework for observational painting that is independent of style, allowing for the discovery of their own artistic temperament and authentic interpretation of the natural world.
Some basic oil painting experience is recommended. Beginner to advanced painters are welcome.
$295 / 2-day workshop. Email pattie@phaetongallery.com or lisa@phaetongallery.com to register.
ARTIST BIO:
Laura Wooten is a painter focused on our human connection to the landscape. Through a close observation of the natural world, with layers of memory and invention, she explores notions of time, place, rootedness, and reverie. She is engaged with painting the landscapes of her daily life: the fields of central Virginia, views to the distant Blue Ridge Mountains, the trees that mark the passing of time in her own backyard, and the immersive plants and flowers that spill from her garden beds and window ledge.
Phaeton Gallery is pleased to host Laura Wooten’s workshop in our historic Carriage Works Studios space on the Downtown Mall in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia.
Priscilla Whitlock in Plein Air
April 29, 30 & May 1, 2024
(FULL, ACCEPTING WAITLIST)
Painting in the Garden
Join Charlottesville artist, Priscilla Whitlock, for a three-day plein air oil painting experience in exquisite private Albemarle gardens.
plein-air
/plānˈer/
adjective
pertaining to a manner or style of painting developed chiefly in France in the mid-19th century, characterized by the representation of the luminous effects of natural light and atmosphere as contrasted with the artificial light and absence of the sense of air or atmosphere associated with paintings produced in the studio.
designating a painting executed out of doors and representing a direct response to the scene or subject in front of the artist.
Some basic oil painting experience is recommended. Beginner to advanced painters are welcome.
$495 / 3-day workshop. Housing and meals not included. Coffee and pastries included. Easels included. Materials list is available upon registration.
Email lisa@phaetongallery.com to register. This small-group workshop will fill quickly! Please confirm your space soon.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
"After years of painting, my interest is to interpret landscapes. The subject matter is about the physicality and energy of the paint and less about landscape as "scenery." Produced by painted marks, dashes, swipes of oil, oil sticks, shapes, and colors, they all come together to represent the mood, light, and sense of place. From a close vantage point, the work is most abstract, but viewed from a distance, it "comes together" to represent a field, marsh, or "view."
My artist studio is near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Albemarle County, Virginia. I would also love to work at Wrightsville Beach on the southern coast of N.C. Dramatic Lunar high tides are accessible only a few times a year and only by boat—the marshes flood and bloom like a field.
I also create monotypes. Monotypes are a type of print not to be confused with a computer-generated photo; monotypes are one-of-a-kind prints made by hand. I paint directly on a plate and transfer the image, using a press, to a piece of paper."
Phaeton Gallery is pleased to host Priscilla Whitlock’s workshop in three lovely, private gardens in Albemarle County. Details and locations available with completed registration.
Our gallery is located at 114 Old Preston Avenue, just opposite the Omni Hotel and two blocks from the Residence Inn by Marriott Charlottesville Downtown, Home2 Suites by Hilton Charlottesville Downtown, 200 South Street Inn, and a variety of comfortable home stays through www.staycharlottesville.com.