January Painting School
2025 Painting Classes at Phaeton!
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
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
SOUNDINGS - a New Exhibition featuring the work of Donna Ernest, Daniel Tucker and Blakeney Sanford
Daniel Tucker of Santa Fe, New Mexico, pictured here, will join artist Donna Ernest of Charlottesville and photographer and sculptor Blakeney Sanford in SOUNDINGS at Phaeton Gallery on September 6, 2024.
Priscilla Long Whitlock Plein Air Workshop
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."
Karen Blair | Priscilla Long Whitlock | Laura Wooten Opening Night Party!
Save the date: April 5, 2024 First Fridays on the Downtown Mall
SPRINGTIME TRILOGY: ALBEMARLE IN BLOOM
Follow the show in Instagram @phaetongallerycharlottesville.
Stay tuned for details about our opening night gathering for April First Fridays and programming throughout the show and during Historic Garden Week in Virginia.
Free and open to the public. All are welcome!
Priscilla Long Whitlock, ‘Forsythia’ oil on canvas, 2024
Laura Wooten Workshop in Oils
Laura Wooten - Oil Painting
March 20 & 21, 2024
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 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.
Laura earned her undergraduate degree in Art and Architecture at the University of Virginia and continued at UVA as an Aunspaugh Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in Studio Art before earning her MFA from American University. Her landscape paintings have been exhibited across the East Coast, including juried shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover, The Painting Center in NYC, and the Mosesian Center for the Arts in Boston. Laura has frequently exhibited in Charlottesville, including solo exhibitions at Chroma Projects and Second Street Gallery. Laura has taught painting and drawing at the University of Virginia and Piedmont Community College, has served as a guest lecturer and critic for Design Thinking classes at the UVA School of Architecture, and has taught drawing as a mindfulness practice. She currently teaches perceptual landscape workshops out of her studio.
Vickie Marsango
Vickie Marsango Solo Exhibition
Join us for our Opening Night Celebration!
William Mason Lord: closeness
Please join us for our opening night gathering and the opportunity to hear William Mason Lord speak about his inspiration and process. Free and open to the public.
“The concept behind my work is to draw a parallel between the need to conserve our dwindling earthly resources and the beautiful places we risk losing if we don’t.” - WML
Lord’s work is composed of dried paint, along with scrap paint that he has collected for the past 15 years. To most people, these materials would be considered waste and discarded. By arranging these pieces of paint into idyllic landscapes, he invites the viewer to not only appreciate the aesthetic value of the work but also consider the importance of prolonging the lifespan of any given product in our increasingly disposable culture.
Jackie Moore Watson Opening Night Party
Texture, color, movement, balance and scale become a visual symphony in these “New Works”.
The loosely rendered paintings of nature and water with all their shifts and flows create an illusion of space void of any linear perspectives or boundaries.
This show is an Ode to Nature which invites the viewer to enter into an imaginary sanctuary created by multiple layers of paint in calming colors and varied rhythmic brushstrokes.
Plein Air with Kelly Wilkinson Coffin
Kelly Wilkinson Coffin is a native Virginian and graduate of the University of Virginia.
She returned to Charlottesville, VA to open her own studio after completing three years of full time study at the Ingbretson Studio of Drawing and Painting, an atelier in the tradition of the Boston School, which combines the drawing and discipline of the Academies of 19th Century Paris with the color and light effects of the impressionists.
Additionally she completed a semester studying portraiture and figure painting at the Charles Cecil studio in Florence, Italy. Prior to pursuing painting full time she served on Active Duty as a Naval Aviator for 10 years and later flew as a First Officer with US Airways while continuing to serve in the Naval Reserve.
Phaeton Gallery looks forward to welcoming Kelly back to the farm and the studios.
Details coming soon!
Hope Olson - The Art of Art Management
Hope Olson, Holland, Michigan
Solo Exhibition at Phaeton Gallery opening April 14.
Hope Olson Solo Exhibition
Hope Olson is a painter and mixed-media artist based in Holland, Michigan. Her art celebrates home, community, and slow, old-fashioned living. The compositions and colors of Hope's abstracted still life and landscape paintings are inspired by her long-held affection for interior decorating, historic architecture, old country villages, and early 20th century art. Hope particularly borrows from the sensibilities of the Fauvist art movement, which emphasizes strong marks and colors that magnify mood and compel curiosity. She earned a B.S. in Interior Design from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and also focused her college coursework in studio art and marketing.
Krista Townsend Weekend Workshop
Krista returns to the studio for a fun weekend session to teach us how to capture nature with acrylics. Coffee bar and lunches included. See website for details and registration.
“After the Wildfire” Krista Townsend, Artist.
he(ART) night!
Bring your special someone for a painting class with professional artist, Jackie Moore Watson, and a fabulous meal Chez Christopher! Join us for an evening of art-making, drinks, food and fun with this dynamic duo at Phaeton Gallery.
Cate West Zahl Workshop
Cate West Zahl Two-day Painting Workshop
Extracting the Flower - Learning How to See
Monday 9:00am - 3:00pm with lunch included, Tuesday 9:00am - 3:00pm with lunch included, $275.00
Cate West Zahl Exhibition
Solo Exhibition with Cate West Zahl. Cate is a painter working in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she lives with her husband and three sons. She first studied studio art under Lee Newman at the Holton-Arms school, and then went on to earn her BA in Fine Arts from Hamilton College. Her academic training was based in the technical study of life, a strong foundation from which she could explore more explicit abstraction. Her resulting abstractions are reminiscent of Richard Diebenkorn’s and push his discoveries in often new and exciting directions.
Andrew O’Shaughnessy and Kristopher Castle, “The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind:” Thomas Jefferson’s Idea of a University with special guest, Richard ‘Guy’ Wilson
Edward L. Ayers (University of Virginia, 1980-2007)
“This eloquent book helps us understand how such a university came to be, to change, and to endure. Andrew O’Shaughnessy’s eloquent study offers the deeply researched exploration the University needs and deserves, positioning the University in the context of American higher education, allowing us to see how emblematic and influential the institution has been since its inception, revealing the University of Virginia to be as complex and compelling as the man whose vision it embodies.”
Painting Workshop with Kristopher Castle
Outside In
Painting figurative landscapes in the studio
Bring the outside inside, using photography to paint beautiful figurative landscapes in the studio. Use your camera roll as your sketchbook, capture views that move you in nature or from your own life and turn them into studio oil paintings.
Learn about creating a studio setup and using a painting system that encourages consistency in your work, free digital resources for editing photographs and color matching, order of painting operations for realism and much more.
Over three days, the workshop group will all paint the same image of a figure in a coastal landscape from a photograph. After group discussions each day, you will jump directly into mixing color and painting.
Kristopher Castle Exhibition
From the middle panel of the exhibition centerpiece, a quintych titled ‘Omnium Curriculum Gatherum’ - View of Rotunda on Academical Village Lawn, featuring groups of figures representing Ancient Languages and Physico- mathematics departments .
This body of work is a modern exploration of Jefferson’s last enduring idea: his philosophical reinvention the American public university, and specifically his greatest architectural opus located within it, the Academical Village.
To schedule your private viewing of Curriculum Vitae, please email us at lisa@phaetongallery.com.
Gayle Jessup White Book Discussion
Reclamation - Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson and a Descendant’s Search for Her Family’s Lasting Legacy
Please join us for a conversation with author Gayle Jessup White and artist Kristopher Castle about Thomas Jefferson’s family. Limited capacity, 75 persons. Free event. 6:00pm start. Parking at Omni Hotel lot, on street and in public lots on there Downtown Mall. Second floor Gallery is regretfully not ADA accessible.
Gayle Jessup White is the Public Relations & Community Engagement Officer at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s legendary estate. A former award-winning television reporter and anchor, Jessup White started her career at the New York Times. She’s written and spoken extensively about her work at Monticello. She is a direct Jefferson descendant, and is also related to two well-documented families enslaved at Monticello—the Hemingses and the Hubbards. She lives in Virginia.