Filter by Category
Still Life
in CE Courses by Subject
All About Acrylics (In-Person)
with Frederic Kaplan
Mondays, 6 – 9 p.m.
Instructor: Frederic Kaplan
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit Only
No class on May 26 (Memorial Day)
This complete acrylic painting course covers basic to advanced methods. Learn to use quick-drying acrylics expertly in both thin transparent layers and thicker, more opaque applications that produce textural and impasto effects. Materials like fluid mediums, gels, and pastes will be demonstrated, along with both brush and palette knife techniques. Several different color palettes will be introduced as students work from still life subjects. This course is ideal for students looking for a non-toxic, flexible painting medium, as well as anyone seeking to explore acrylics’ excellent potential for representational and abstract work. Drawing experience is recommended.
Image: Frederic Kaplan
Register by: May 12
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Oil Painting: Core Techniques (In-Person)
with Frederic Kaplan
Wednesdays, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Instructor: Frederic Kaplan
Six-Week Condensed Course (30 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit or 1.0 Undergraduate Credit (See Below)
Whether you are new or returning to oil painting, this comprehensive foundational course is the perfect way to learn its materials and techniques and how to apply them effectively. Instruction will discuss and demonstrate a range of colors, paint brands, and painting mediums and demystify painting conventions such as “fat over lean” and “thick over thin.” Working from still-life subject matter, begin with simple “direct” alla prima sketches, and then advance to “indirect” layering approaches of building upon a tonal underpainting – first with a limited selection of transparent and opaque colors, and later with a more extended palette. Develop methodologies for the process of making a painting, including managing color and value, and constructing an engaging composition. Previous drawing experience recommended.
Optional: This course is available for 1.0 undergraduate credit for $595. Select credit option with price adjustment when registering.
Register by: May 14
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Ease into Oil Painting (In-Person)
with Frederic Kaplan
Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Instructor: Frederic Kaplan
Weekend Workshop
Credit: Non-Credit Only
Want to paint but don't know where to begin? This two-day structured workshop makes it painless and easy to ease into oil painting. Begin with a black-and-white painting (just like drawing) to become familiar with painting tools and materials. Be introduced to color with a simple earth-palette painting. Move on to a brighter prismaticpalette, and then top off the weekend by completing a painting in a full palette of colors. This course will utilize still life subject matter. Drawing experience recommended.
Register by: June 13
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Observational Drawing Practices (In-Person)
with John Horn
Tuesdays, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Instructor: John Horn
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit Only
Strengthen and hone your foundational drawing skills through a series of one- and two-day projects. Topics of concern will be design, structure of space, perspective, and light and shade. Subjects will include interior space, single objects and still life arrangements, and the life model. All levels from beginner to advanced are welcome. Tuition includes a $15 models fee.
Register by: July 1
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Watercolor: The Color-Focused Still Life (In-Person)
with Keith Leitner
Tuesdays, 6 – 9 p.m.
Instructor: Keith Leitner
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit Only
Explore both the versatility of watercolor and the exciting possibilities of color through still life painting. Learn to capture form with the freshness and fluidity of all prima techniques. Promote color in your work through instruction on color properties, mixing, and basic theory, as well as how to use hues in combination to create impactful compositions. Discussions and in-depth demonstrations will enforce all content so that students gain the facility and freedom to use color and painting techniques as means of personal expression. This course is excellent for beginners or anyone who loves color and loose, painterly techniques in watercolor.
Register by: July 1
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Precision Pencil Drawing (In-Person)
with Frederic Kaplan
Wednesdays, 1 – 4 p.m.
Instructor: Frederic Kaplan
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)
Credit: Non-Credit Only
The simple pencil is an economical medium readily accessible to students at all levels, including beginners. It can produce drawings that range from poetic delicacy to energetic and bold expressiveness. Working from still life arrangements, interiors, window views, and PAFA’s cast collection, students will explore a variety of approaches for using pencil to shade and model form convincingly and with beauty. Instruction will review basic drawing principles and observational skills such as evaluating shape, gauging proportions, and employing perspective effects like foreshortening. Previous drawing experience is recommended but not required.
Register by: July 2
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Observational Painting Toward Expression and Abstraction (Online)
with Al Gury
Sundays, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. (Interactive asynchronous Canvas content supported by weekly Zoom meetings)
Instructor: Al Gury
Six-Week Condensed Course (30-Hour Equivalent)
Credit: Non-Credit or 1.0 Undergraduate Credit (See Below)
Explore the creative and expressive possibilities that can enhance your traditional and observational artwork. Each week the class on Zoom will begin with a traditional subject: still lifes, landscapes, portraits, interiors and figures and master works with a goal of exploring and bringing greater expression and creativity to the subject. Content will include Q&A about materials and processes that students might struggle with, the visual history of the creative diversity and variety of the subject in art history, color, style and compositional possibilities, richly informative materials posted in Canvas and video demos by the instructor. A weekly project will be assigned with a goal of incorporating creative possibilities in each subject with critiques on Canvas by the Instructor. Each class will be recorded for review and sent to students weekly. The class learning goal for students is an enriched toolbox of creative ideas, and possibilities for the artistic process. Open to all media.
Optional: This course is available for 1.0 undergraduate credit for $595. Select credit option with price adjustment when registering.
Register by: July 7
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies
Information for PAFA CE Online Courses
Color Temperature in Painting Workshop (In-Person)
with Keith Leitner
Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Instructor: Keith Leitner
Weekend Workshop
Credit: Non-Credit Only
Color temperature is the perceived warmth and coolness of a color. It’s a vital tool for any artist for creating contrast and focus, establishing relationships between light and shadow, suggesting space or distance, and generating mood and meaning. This two-day course will investigate color temperature through a series of still-life exercises that will encourage experimentation, enforce understanding of color’s relative nature, and help you promote temperature effects in your work. Examples from historic and contemporary artists will be discussed. Instruction will be conducted chiefly in watercolor, but painters of all media are welcome!
Image: Keith Leitner
Register by: August 1
Materials List
Summer 2025 CE Policy Guide, including withdrawal/refund policies