Still life, landscape, portrait sessions planned

Richard Christian Nelson will be teaching three weekend workshops in Tryon this spring. They will begin with a three day still life workshop May 26-28. Next will be a spring landscape workshop June 9-11 and lastly a portrait workshop June 23-25. The classes will meet in Tryon from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. The landscape workshop will venture out to paint in the area each day. You can get more information, register and pay at richnelson.com, email rich@richnelson.com or call 828-817-3784.

The workshops are open to all media, but oils will be emphasized. They are open to all ages and skill levels.

For the still life workshop, the class will concentrate on all of the steps of the painting process by creating compositions with simple objects such as fruit, vegetables, and pottery.

In the landscape workshop artists will work on the fundamentals of painting outdoors. According to Nelson, “We will paint the beautiful North Carolina foothills for three days. If it is raining we will stay indoors and decide if we prefer to work on still life or hire a model.”

In the portrait workshop, artists will work from live models on the fundamentals of anatomy, form, and light to improve our skills at painting the portrait and figure. There will be lectures and demos by Nelson, and group critiques; mostly just putting the work up and having each artist say how it’s going.

Richard Christian Nelson is a gallery and portrait artist who has lived in Tryon since 2004. He earned his BFA from the College of Creative Studies in Detroit Michigan in 1988. You can view his work at  richardchristiannelson.com. He was on the faculty for the Portrait Society of America’s Art of the Portrait Conference in April 2016 (where he received signature status), his portrait ‘Emilie’ was accepted into the Oil Painters of America’s Salon in May and in 2015 he was selected as “One To Watch” in the June issue of Fine Arts Connoisseur magazine.

Rich taught anatomy, figure drawing and painting at College of Creative Studies part time after graduating. He does a number of workshops in various locations each year. Usually he begins each workshop with introductions, a lecture on his materials and approach, a lecture on light and shadow, and a lecture on color. He then does a demonstration painting.

After that each artist sets up and paints, with a number of class reviews throughout the week. Rich often keeps painting and demoing if the class would like, as he is interested in demonstrating and participating in the process of painting.

Class sizes are limited to 12. There is a fee for the classes. Visit richnelson.com/workshops, email rich@richnelson.com or call 828-817-3784 for more information.

 Article submitted by Richard Christian Nelson