Your browser is not optimized for viewing this website.

More information »

Continuing Education at PAFA

Filter by Category



Watercolor, Gouache & Tempera

in Courses by Medium/Discipline

Introduction to Gouache Painting

$395

with Shushana Rucker

Calendar Current session started Oct 6, 2026 at 6 pm, runs for 8 weeks

Tuesdays, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM  
Instructor: Shushana Rucker  
Eight-Week Short Course (24 Hours)  

Learn the fundamentals of painting with gouache, the opaque watercolor paint. Painters of all levels will fall in love with it as a portable, fast-drying, and easy-to-clean-up alternative to oils – great for travel or limited working time and space. Explore color and painting techniques through still life subjects and personal photo references. Students will gain familiarity gouache’s unique characteristics to work on a variety of surfaces, master paint fluidity and control, accurately mix color and predict its effects, and promote its layering capabilities and surface qualities. Open to all levels; prior drawing experience is helpful for any painting course.

Registration Still Open!  
Materials List
  
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

Autumn Leaves and Fruit in Watercolor Workshop

$195

with Linda Gist

Calendar Next available session starts Oct 24, 2026 at 9:30 am

Saturday and Sunday, 9:30 AM - 4:30 PM  
Instructor: Linda Gist  
Weekend Workshop  

Watercolor is the perfect medium for capturing the jewel-like tones and gradients of color in autumn’s changing leaves and abundant harvests. Learn to preserve the season’s rich textures and tapestries of color by exploring a variety of paint mixing and application techniques while working from natural forms. This workshop will include demonstrations of wet-into-wet and dry-brush techniques and one-on-one instruction. All experience levels welcome.

Register by: October 16 
Materials List  
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering. 

Watercolor Plunge

$295

with Tony Rosati

Calendar Next available session starts Oct 29, 2026 at 1 pm, runs for 6 weeks

Thursdays, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM  
Instructor: Tony Rosati  
Six-Week Short Course (18 Hours)
 
No class on November 26 (Thanksgiving Break)  

Take the plunge to learn the fundamentals of watercolor through this beginner-friendly class designed for those with little or no painting experience! Acquire a thorough grounding in basic watercolor materials and techniques, including papers, brushes and pigments, as well as transparent and opaque painting methods. Gain the confidence to further your skills and enjoyment in the medium, in future studies or personal expression.

Register by: October 22  
Materials List
   
Please review CE’s Fall 2026 Policy Guide, including Withdrawal/Refund Policies, prior to registering.

The Personal Language of Color Through Painting

$295

with Kate Moran

Calendar Next available session starts Nov 4, 2026 at 9 am, runs for 6 weeks

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.





Forgot password?
Staff Log In