The Painted Ocean: Henri, Kent, Hopper, and Bellows with Rachael and John David O’Shaughnessy

In-person at the Gamble Center on the Farnsworth Campus

In this exciting new one-day workshop co-taught by artists John O’Shaughnessy and Rachael O’Shaughnessy, students will be gently guided to create their own convincing drawings and paintings from among Maine’s majestic coastal inspirations, particularly Monhegan Island. We’ll explore key works within the permanent collection by Robert Henri, and his legendary students Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, and George Bellows. Observation, focus, and feeling will be key as students develop and strengthen their own unique way and work toward creating more convincing, unique seascapes of their own. 

We’ll be utilizing gouache and watercolor media in this specialized, one-day class that will include viewing works by Maine-inspired masters, as well as live drawing and painting demonstrations by the husband and wife artists. Students will be given individual instruction connecting them to light quality, water reflections, spatial cues, movement, composition, mark-making, and the development of a visual voice. Powerful marks and brush strokes will become second nature, as students develop a lasting new way to see and a new way to create their own unique ocean works into view. All skill levels are welcome!

Rachael O’Shaughnessy is perhaps best known for witnessing thousands of consecutive sunrises over the ocean and translating them into atmospheric drawings and paintings. A contemporary romantic and luminist painter, and art instructor, O’Shaughnessy has a passion for ocean storms as they meet the timeless and sublime. 

Awarded Hewnoaks Artist Colony Residencies, Vermont Studio Center Residencies, Pace Residencies, and others, O’Shaughnessy incorporates her work in museums into her own visceral experience of nature. Bob Keyes of The Portland Press Herald writes: “She trusts that her single-minded dedication shows itself in deeper paintings that express not what she sees each morning but how she feels. She wants to transfer the energy of the sun and the movement of the water to the surface of her paintings.” In recent years, sublime works by J.M. W. Turner, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Frederic Church cue in her passion for color and light as they meet the New England coastline.

O’Shaughnessy received a BFA with honors in painting from Maine College of Art, residencies include Vermont Studio Center working with Lois Dodd, and Wolf Kahn, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, and independent studies in Europe.  An instructor for the Currier Museum of Art, and Historic New England Museums, among others, O’Shaughnessy’s work is shown in numerous public and private collections.

John David O’Shaughnessy has developed his eye over the years through his work in the field of design. His paintings are known for carrying an intensity of movement held in bold gesture, saturated, improvisational color, and an unrelenting pursuit of fugitive light. John David can often be found painting seascapes directly from life in all shifts of weather along the coast of Maine, or on the edges of hidden coves along the New England coast. He was inspired by his study in Stonington Maine for two summers in recent years with the late Jon Imber, breaking into a new phase of language in his paintings. John teaches drawing, painting, and printmaking. He shows his paintings in galleries throughout Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. He is a member of the Ogunquit Art Association in Maine.

John David O’Shaughnessy studied painting at Massachusetts College of Art where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Fine art in Painting.

Here is the material list for the Painted Ocean class, https://www.dickblick.com/myaccount/blicku/0cxrpxgeee5qr/ 
If you have these materials or another brand of these materials, that is great! Please bring them to class. 

Cost: $195; $175 members