Tuesdays, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Instructor: Roger Chavez  
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)  

Cultivate fluid mark-making and bold approaches to subject matter through rapid and loose painting studies. Tight and precise painting, especially in the early stages of an artwork, can sometimes lead to work that appears stiff and over-labored, or to locked-in compositions that are difficult to change or correct. Working from the still life, cityscapes, and the life model, utilize short, small painting exercises to learn new ways of starting paintings, keeping compositions open to adjustment, and both initiating and retaining a sense of freshness in your forms and brushstrokes. Instruction will address color mixing, painting materials and methodologies, and the importance of cultivating viablemethods for growth in your painting practice. Discover the beauty and freedom of loosening up your painting! Note: Tuition includes a $15 models fee.

Image: Roger Chavez

Register by: October 27  
Materials List  
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Tuesdays, 12:30 PM - 3:30 PM  
Instructor: Matthew Courtney  
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)  

Combine practicality and creativity through the art of sculpting and throwing functional ceramics. Create bowls, platters, vessels, and more that you can both use and admire every day. Through hands-on instruction and practice, learn essential hand-building techniques such as pinching, slab-building, coil-building, and surface treatments, as well as the basics of how to throw on a pottery wheel. Instruction will cover principles of form, texture, balance, and proportion, in addition to the fundamentals of the firing process. Develop your sculpting skills in a supportive and inspiring environment, and come away with handmade artworks that are both usable and personally expressive. Open to both beginners and experienced artists. Tuition includes a $30 lab fee.

Image: Student work, courtesy of Matthew Courtney.

Register by: October 27  
Materials List  
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Wednesdays, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM  
Instructor: Kate Moran
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)  

This six-week painting course invites students to explore color as a personal, sensory, and expressive language. Through sustained painting practice, students will investigate how color is shaped by what we see as well as by memory, emotion, place, atmosphere, and lived experience. 

Working in a variety of aqueous painting mediums, students will experiment with color relationships, expand beyond habitual palette choices, and develop greater sensitivity to the subtle shifts that make color feel luminous, unexpected, harmonious, or emotionally charged. The landscape, urban environment, photographs, and personal objects will provide starting points for paintings and opportunities to examine how observation can be transformed through individual perception. Photography, journaling, and close observation will be used as tools for gathering visual information and becoming more attentive to color in everyday life. Students will keep a color journal that may include photographs, written observations, collected images, painted studies, palette experiments, and other material that can be brought back into the studio and developed through painting.  Small-scale paintings and color studies will encourage experimentation, repetition, and risk-taking, guided by the examples of contemporary artists whose distinctive approaches to color reveal individual ways of seeing and interpreting the world.   

By the end of the course, students will have created a collection of studies that reflect an increasingly confident and personal approach to color.  No previous experience with color theory is required. All levels are welcome. 

Image: Kate Moran, Color Wheel, 2024, gouache on paper, 8 x 8 in.

Register by: October 28  
Materials List      
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Saturday and Sunday, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM  
Instructor: Colleen O'Donnell  
Weekend Workshop   

Learn the techniques and tools of figure sculpture through demonstration and hands-on sculpting from the model. Explore anatomy, proportion, gesture, and design through the versatility of clay. Personal expression will be emphasized though representational and abstract approaches. Open to all levels and perfect for beginners. Tuition includes a $35 models fee.

Register by: October 30  
Materials List   
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Saturday and Sunday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM  
Instructor: James Toogood  
Weekend Workshop  

Water: It’s all around us -- streams, rivers, lakes, oceans, atmospheric effects, and more. It's a key ingredient in watercolor painting, regardless of the subject matter. But how does the artist create the illusion of water in a painting, regardless of the medium? This two-day workshop will present key tactics an artist can employ when painting bodies of water. Examine the nature of reflections, water movement, how water appears under various weather and lighting conditions, and more. Instruction includes demonstrations of how to incorporate various water effects in your own work and a review of the ways master artists historically have portrayed water in their paintings over the years. Open to all levels. 

Register by: November 6  
Materials List   
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM ,
Instructor: Kassem Amoudi  
Weekend Online Workshop (Zoom Only)  

Elevate the role of color and learn how to incorporate it both strategically and intuitively into your paintings under the guidance of artist/critic/mentor Kassem Amoudi. Examine concepts of temperature, value, saturation, and harmony/contrast through color relationships. Explore color’s role in creating focal points, suggesting space, influencing mark, and promoting personal expression. Work from personal subject matter (objects, images, emotions, or ideas) to develop your personal style, informed by examples from contemporary and modern art. Painting experience recommended.

Register by: November 13  
Materials List  
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Saturday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM  
Instructor: Shushana Rucker  
Weekend Workshop  

The painting knife is an important accompaniment to the brush for creating textural effects, expressive marks, and broad planes of color. Learn how to use this tool to achieve bold lines, crisp edges, and even fine details while working from still life or reference imagery. Explore color, texture, and painterly application as you expand your range of painting techniques for your own representational or abstract work.

Register by: November 30  
Materials List   
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Lockers are available for CE students enrolled within the current semester. Lockers are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. In advance of your course start date, the CE office will send you an email with the locker number and combination. Please do not replace the assigned lock with a personal lock. Report any problems with the lock combination or items left in the locker to the CE office at continuinged@pafa.edu. 

Locker fees are non-refundable except in the event of CE-issued course cancellations.

Lockers are available for use only for the duration of the course(s) in which you are enrolled. Your locker reservation is available starting on your first day of class. Items cannot be stored in advance unless special accommodation is needed and arranged with permission through the CE office.

Lockers must be emptied promptly after your last day of class, even if you plan to enroll for the following semester. This is a Security requirement. Please plan accordingly for removal of items and transportation arrangements. PAFA is not responsible for items left after December 13, after which date they may be discarded.

After emptying your locker, please lock the door.