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Continuing Education at PAFA



Drawing

in Courses by Medium/Discipline

Painting + Printmaking (In-Person)

$315

with Justine Ditto

Calendar Current session started Nov 3, 2025 at 12:30 pm, runs for 6 weeks

Mondays, 12:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Instructor: Justine Ditto
Six-WeekShort Course (18 Hours) 

Painting and printmaking go hand-in-hand, not only as adjacent mediums but in combination. This freeing and instructive course presents printmaking techniques as jumping off points to making mixed media work in spirit of experimentation and personal expression. Learn how to make monotypes, drypoints, and screenprints as a foundation for incorporating your choice of graphite, colored pencil, acrylic, watercolor, oil paint, and/or collage. Content includes technical advice from an artist-instructor ideally skilled in a variety of media as well as critiques to expand your creative boundaries. This class is perfect for painters/draftspeopleseeking to expand their processes, printmakers seeking to employ painterly and mixed media techniques, and anyone with love of color and experimentation. Open to all levels – no prior printmaking or painting experience required. Tuition includes a $20 materials fee.

Image: Justine Ditto

Registration still open! 
Materials List 
Fall 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies  

Drawing Refresher (In-Person)

$295

with Frederic Kaplan

Calendar Current session started Nov 3, 2025 at 6 pm, runs for 6 weeks

Mondays, 6 – 9 p.m. 
Instructor: Frederic Kaplan 
Six-Week ShortCourse (18 Hours)  

If you haven’t drawn in a while, this course will help to rebuild your skills in translating the 3D world to the 2D surface of your paper. Hone your ability to interpret and define proportions, shapes, and value structure while working from observation from city views, interiors, and still-life objects. Content will address shading techniques, principles of perspective, and line quality in charcoal or pencil. Students will learn to:

  • Reduce complex forms to simpler elements
  • Gauge proportions and shapes using sighting techniques and other methods
  • Use light and shadow to model form three-dimensionally
  • Employ shading techniques
  • Practice fundamental perspective principles and methods

Image: Fred Kaplan

Register by: October 27 
Materials List 
Fall 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies  

Advanced Portrait Drawing Workshop (In-Person)

$205

with RA Friedman

Calendar Next available session starts Dec 6, 2025 at 9 am

Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Instructor: RA Friedman
Weekend Workshop 

This intensive workshop is designed for those looking to push their portrait drawing abilities toward the professional level. Demonstrations and in-class exercises will open up how you see, think, and approach the creation of a likeness, avoiding common pitfalls. Explore subtleties of form and the relationships of lines, planes and tones, capturing the character and energy of the subject. Additionally, instruction will cover facial expressions and deep anatomy of the face, neck, and upper body. Drawing will be primarily in graphite pencil and stick. Introductory portrait drawing or equivalent recommended. Note: Tuition includes a $10 models fee.

Image: RA Friedman

Register by: December 1
Materials List
Fall 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies  

Fifteen-Week Extended Studio: Graphic Narrative and Comics, DM 203 (In-Person)

$1,400

with Deon Robinson

Calendar Next available session starts Jan 5, 2026 at 8:30 am, runs for 15 weeks

Mondays, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM  
Instructor: Deon Robinson  
Fifteen-Week Extended Studio Course (45 Hours)
  
Note: No class on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19, or during Spring Break, March 2 – 8. 

PAFA’s Extended Studio Courses offer fifteen-weeks of comprehensive instruction taught by PAFA's core faculty for an immersive fine arts experience. PAFA's selection of Continuing Education traditional-length and short courses will be coming soon! 

With a focus on telling stories utilizing artwork, this course explores the juxtaposition of word and image, sequentially, and other narrative tools to convey visual meaning. Participants will complete several visual narratives within a variety of formats, which may include a series of related images, a comic book, picture book, graphic novel, or other illustrated narrative. Course Modality: in-person. 

Image: Deon Robinson

Register by: January 2  
Materials will be addressed via PAFA’s Canvas online platform (if applicable) or on the first day of class.  
Please review the CE Winter/Spring Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies  
Notes: Extended Studio Courses are not eligible for PAFA membership or promotional discounts. A minimum 10% fee applies to withdrawals, including same-day – students are advised to confirm their schedules before registering. 

Fifteen-Week Extended Studio: Principles of Illustration, DM 210 (In-Person)

$1,400

with Deon Robinson

Calendar Next available session starts Jan 5, 2026 at 1 pm, runs for 15 weeks

Mondays, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM  
Instructor: Deon Robinson  
Fifteen-Week Extended Studio Course (45 Hours)
  
Note: No class on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19, or during Spring Break, March 2 – 8.
 

PAFA’s Extended Studio Courses offer fifteen-weeks of comprehensive instruction taught by PAFA's core faculty for an immersive fine arts experience. PAFA's selection of Continuing Education traditional-length and short courses will be coming soon! 

This course offers a survey of illustration in both function and practical application. Students will learn to analyze and visually interpret written source material while exploring a variety of ideation methods and experimenting with techniques combining traditional and digital media. Key projects will include illustrations for editorials, advertising, product packaging, picture books, and lifestyle applications. Students not pursuing a focus in illustration but interested in visual communication are encouraged to join this class. Course Modality: in-person.

Image: Deon Robinson 

Register by: January 2  
Materials
will be addressed via PAFA’s Canvas online platform (if applicable) or on the first day of class.  
Please review the 
CE Winter/Spring Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies  
Notes: Extended Studio Courses are not eligible for PAFA membership or promotional discounts. A minimum 10% fee applies to withdrawals, including same-day – students are advised to confirm their schedules before registering. 

Fifteen-Week Extended Studio: Inventive Drawing, FY 122 (In-Person)

$1,400

with Steve Nocella

Calendar Next available session starts Jan 6, 2026 at 8:30 am, runs for 15 weeks

Tuesdays, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Instructor: Steve Nocella
  
Fifteen-Week Extended Studio Course (45 Hours) 
Note: No class during Spring Break, March 2 – 8.

PAFA’s Extended Studio Courses offer fifteen-weeksof comprehensive instruction taught by PAFA's core faculty for an immersive fine arts experience. PAFA's selection of Continuing Education traditional-length and short courseswill be coming soon!

In this class, students will apply principles of drawing to invented images, both representational and abstract. Students will draw from the imagination without live, physical reference using a variety of approaches that may include using photo and found reference, narrative drawing (single and multi-panel), creating visual solutions to a brief, and constraint-based abstraction. 

Image: Chaim Gross, Sketch for Sculpture, 1980, Pen and ink, graphite and sepia wash on off-white wove paper, 12 1/2 x 17 13/16 in. Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Gift of the artist, 1985.59 

Register by:January 2 
Materials
will be addressed via PAFA’s Canvas online platform (if applicable) or on the first day of class.
Please review the CE Winter/SpringPolicy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Notes:
Extended Studio Courses are not eligible for PAFA membership or promotional discounts. A minimum 10% fee applies to withdrawals, including same-day – students are advised to confirm their schedules before registering.

Fifteen-Week Extended Studio: Painting Materials and Methods II, PT 205B (In-Person)

$1,400

with Jill A. Rupinski

Calendar Next available session starts Jan 6, 2026 at 1 pm, runs for 15 weeks

Tuesdays, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM 
Instructor: Jill A. Rupinski 
Fifteen-Week Extended Studio Course (45 Hours) 
Note: No class during Spring Break, March 2 – 8. 

PAFA’s Extended Studio Courses offer fifteen-weeks of comprehensive instruction taught by PAFA's core faculty for an immersive fine arts experience. PAFA's selection of Continuing Education traditional-length and short courses will be coming soon! 

This course will provide hands-on experience using traditional dry media, such as graphite, colored pencils, chalk, and pastel, through water-soluble materials, such as watercolor, gouache and ink. There will be ample presentation, lecture, and demonstration of the wet/dry media techniques. Students will be guided in working from personal sketches, paintings, photography, and from recognized artworks as well as from observation. Students will be expected to provide basic materials that they already have and most paper. To ensure that all students can experience the various processes, the instructor will provide any materials that individual students do not have. Issues of form, spatial concepts, color, visual and critical thinking will be addressed through individual and group critiques. Course Modality: in-person. 

Image: Jill A. Rupinski 

Register by: January 2  
Materials
will be addressed via PAFA’s Canvas online platform (if applicable) or on the first day of class.  
Please review the CE Winter/Spring Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies  
Notes:
Extended Studio Courses are not eligible for PAFA membership or promotional discounts. A minimum 10% fee applies to withdrawals, including same-day – students are advised to confirm their schedules before registering. 

Fifteen-Week Extended Studio: Developing a Major Work Through Preparation and Improvisation, PT 222 (In-Person)

$1,400

with Peter Van Dyck

Calendar Next available session starts Jan 9, 2026 at 8:30 am, runs for 15 weeks

Fridays, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM*  
Instructor: Peter Van Dyck  
Fifteen-Week Extended Studio Course (45 – 90 Hours)
  
Note: No class during Spring Break, March 2 – 8.
 

PAFA’s Extended Studio Courses offer fifteen-weeks of comprehensive instruction taught by PAFA's core faculty for an immersive fine arts experience. PAFA's selection of Continuing Education traditional-length and short courses will be coming soon! 

This class is an opportunity for the student to develop three complex works of escalating ambition. As has often been said, “all art comes from other art” in the sense that artmaking is a culture in continuous negotiation with present needs and precedent. Students will develop a small group of imaginative peers from the labyrinth of painting history to consult and debate in the development of three works. The resulting pictures may include the production of studies, copies, collages, and any other kind of visual fodder to develop ambitious compositions that will explore the overlapping terrains of abstraction and figuration. What is meant here is that Piero, de Stael, Gorky, Ingres, Mary Cassatt, and Kerry James Marshall are fraternal and in solidarity about the demands of painting. Course Modality: in-person. 

*Optional: This course is also available for full-day attendance (morning, 8:30 - 11:30 a.m., and afternoon, 1 - 4 p.m.) for $2,800. Select length with tuition adjustment during checkout. 

Image: Peter Van Dyck 

Register by: January 2  
Materials
will be addressed via PAFA’s Canvas online platform (if applicable) or on the first day of class. 
Please review CE Winter/Spring Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies  
Notes: Extended Studio Courses are not eligible for PAFA membership or promotional discounts. A minimum 10% fee applies to withdrawals, including same-day – students are advised to confirm their schedules before registering. 





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