Drawing for Painters
with Dawn Stafford
Tuesday–Friday, July 23–26, 2024, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Tuition: $210
Four-day workshops do not include lunch. A four-day lunch plan is available for an additional $75. Please select this option when registering if you wish to join us for lunch each day at 1 p.m.
This basic drawing workshop in Ox-Bow’s natural landscape is suitable for anyone who ponders these questions: How is drawing important to painting? Where does one leave off, and the other begin? How does light give form to the things around us? Why does “conservation of values” matter? Students will deepen their drawing skills with a nod to the painter within and with a specific understanding of structure, value, and composition. Painting problems are often drawing problems. This workshop is aimed at strengthening both, in turn. Be prepared to get messy with charcoal! Drawing references and demonstrations will be shared, as well as group discussion. Students will be required to bring their own materials; a material list will be provided in advance.
Dawn Stafford is a full-time artist working in the Saugatuck/Fennville area. Her oil paintings of West Michigan’s landscape, rural fauna & flora, and everyday human objects explore subtle color palettes, rhythms, and harmonies that seek to reduce the noise of the outer world. Often using color and scale to effect a sense of intimacy, atmosphere, or presence. Painter, artist, teacher, mother, and gardener she creates and exhibits her work in a repurposed historic one-room schoolhouse, The Peachbelt Studio - formerly the Peachbelt Schoolhouse, ca 1867. Open weekends seasonally, May - October. Since 1996 she has participated as both student and staff member at Oxbow, as kitchen staff, teaching assistant, course instructor, and Art on the Meadow facilitator. Originally from New York, she received her BFA from Swain School of Design in Massachusetts before moving to Michigan in 1992. Her work is widely collected.
Dawn Stafford, Vintage Schwinns, oil on canvas. Images courtesy of the artist.