Make breathtaking paintings with dramatic light and color, like sunset and marsh/lake scenes, then add wildlife (birds, gators, etc) and learn to match the lighting to make it look like they were there all along! Work from supplied photos to create an atmospheric painting, then choose which critter you want to include. Make value sketches and color studies to plan how the light will wrap around the forms, and create a finished, polished painting. Work from supplied references, individual and group attention. Open to all media, demonstrations in pastel.
Artist Bio
Shawn Dell Joyce was born in Texas in 1965 and grew up on the border in Brownsville Tx. She worked in her family’s citrus orchards until an unseasonable frost killed the trees in1982. This loss changed the trajectory of her career from farmer to artist. She went to art school at University of North Texas in Denton, and studied Semiotics with artist Vernon Fisher, then transferred to San Francisco Art Institute in 1987. Her real education happened as an artist’s apprentice in SoHo section of NY where she worked in several artist’s studios until leaving the city for the beautiful farmlands North of the city and began teaching plein air classes in 2000, and continues weekly to this day in Tampa Bay. She founded a plein air school with an Arts and Agricultural mission based on the historic Hudson River School, called the Wallkill River School of Art. It still exists today as a nonprofit arts organization with a mission of bringing cultural tourism to the Hudson Valley region through plein air painting workshops and events on local farms, historic sites and open spaces.
Joyce has won many prestigious awards for plein air painting, and is a signature member of Pastel Society ofTampa Bay (PSTB), New York Plein Air Painters (NYPAP), and International Plein AirPainters (IPAP), and Pastel Society ofAmerica (PSA). She has been featured in many national newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Plein Air Magazine, Plein Air Podcast with Eric Rhoads, Pastel Journal Magazine, Tampa Bay Magazine. She is represented by six galleries around the country including Wallkill River School in NY, Woodfield Fine Art in St. Pete, and Lakeside Inn Gallery in Mount Dora, FL.She teaches workshops in pastel and plein air techniques across the country in Staunton, VA, Olana, NY, Tampa Bay Florida, and is included in museum collections in the Georges Pompidou Museum in France and the Museum of Modern Art in NY. She recently won the Creative Pinellas grant for established artists in 2023, Best in Show for Central Florida Pastel Society Annual Exhibit, and Best in Show for 2024 Pastel Society of Tampa Bay Annual Exhibit.
What you will need
Bring your favorite media and two supports (canvas/paper) 16x20 or 12x14 along with all brushes, solvents, etc.
Pack a lunch and drink
Bring two photos of a landscape and two photos of wildlife you would like to add to that landscape. (Or choose from mine! I’ll bring hundreds of photos to use)
Sketchbook and pencil/markers/charcoal for value sketch
Standing easel if you don’t want to use a tabletop easel (provided)
Shawn’s workshops are sponsored by AmpersandSurfaces.