Structure, Space and Movement in Oil Painting with Holly Overton — Jun 6 - 8

Dates: June 6, 2025 → June 8, 2025
Times: 12pm-5pm each day with a 1 hour break
Level:

Workshop Description:
Class 1: -demonstration of preparing optimal painting surface  -powerpoint presentation on focus for the day’s class: structure, activating the edge, negative space as engaged shapes, value in graphite

• three 20 minute composition/value sketches of still life in the space of the room -30 minute critique of everyone’s drawings to share ideas  -palette organization -homework assignment: make one sketch from memory of the things you remember from the still life.  Class 2:  -powerpoint presentation on focus for class: value structure, color as shape, warm shadow vs. cool light -utilizing a favorite sketch from the previous class as a guide to paint still life -paint 3 hours -homework assignment: write one paragraph about the things you remember and are excited about from the still life.  Class 3: -powerpoint presentation on focus for class: movement, tonal groupings, plastic space vs. illusionistic depth, encouraging one’s own painting language -finish painting -30 minute critique of everyone’s work Students should expect to have a mental list of ways to analyse and make dynamic paintings, leave with a 16x20 painting, and a tool box for continued self-study investigation into dynamic oil painting. 
  
  About the Instructor:
  Holly Overton is a Brooklyn-based oil painter and musician from the barrier islands of North Carolina and is currently in the MFA painting program at New York Studio School. Rooted in painting, her work is figurative and psychological, using a set of symbols in dialogue with each other. Imagery of women physical laborers, anthropomorphic roses, calm or wild ocean horizons and animated water droplets establishing a visual dictionary to view and interpret the paintings. Overton introduced a new symbol to her lexicon—window blinds, to cast bands of shadow and light onto the subject, projecting the social stigma around the autonomy of women's bodies.

Her visual references are painted from direct observation in the studio, in nature, and from maquettes that she builds, lights and photographs. Her MFA concentration is color and shape as structure, drawing from the Nabis painters Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, and the plastic space of Richard Diebenkorn. She exhibits nationally, with recent exhibitions including Curtain Call at Blah Blah Gallery (PA) in 2025, a two woman show Broken Air Conditioner at Swells’a (NC) in 2023, Do Not Research curated by Josh Citarella at Lower Cavity in Holyoke (MA) in 2022; and New York City Symphonies of the Millennium Film Workshop at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) in 2022. She has composes records and performs nationally in art rock and is currently painting album art for her forthcoming solo album, Live in Fiction.

Required Materials:
- (16x20 canvas will be provided!!) -Two to three oil paint brushes size 6
- 8, 10 (Princeton Aspen Series Synthetic is my personal preference) -16 oz Gamsol odorless mineral spirits -16 oz plastic bucket with lid ($2.24/ea) for Gamsol -16 oz linseed oil any brand -small jar with lid for linseed oil -12x16 or larger disposable palette paper any brand or glass palette -sketchbook any brand/size -2b and 5b any brand pencils 3.7ml oil paint tubes of any brand (bring as many as you can, okay if not all): flake white (hue is fine) titanium white cadmium red medium yellow ochre burnt umber raw umber ultramarine blue cobalt blue magenta peach or ivory black cadmium yellow medium

viridian alizarin crimson venetian or earth red caput mortuum violet cadmium orange cerulean blue dioxazine violet chrome oxide green earth green

Optional Materials:
- Optional materials: 3.7ml oil paint tubes any brand: titanium white
- venetian or earth red, caput mortem violet, viridian, raw umber, alizarin crimson, cadmium orange, cerulean blue, dioxozine violet, chrome oxide green, magenta, earth green