Drafting Flattened Space & Pattern

with Ann Toebbe
PAINTING & DRAWING 666 001 | 1.5 credits | $100 Lab Fee
August 24–30, 2025

This weeklong course explores flattened space as a compositional and narrative framework with a focus on pattern, decoration, multi-view perspective, and intuitive "quilted" layouts. We will be looking at Indian miniature, folk, and medieval depictions of space and a range of 20th century American artists like Horace Pippin, Morris Hirschfield, Martin Ramirez, Florine Stettheimer, Grandma Moses, and Nellie Mae Roe moving toward younger contemporary artists like Anne Buckwalter, Larissa Bates, Bryan Rogers, Laura Williams, Robyn O'Neill, and Andrea Joyce Heimer. Working in graphite and colored pencil the class will focus on creating quicker small drawings at the start of the week then slow down to create 1-2 finished works on larger paper. The option to paint or add paint media will be the artist's choice. We will wrap up the week with a class discussion of the best or breakthrough pieces generated during the intensive work sessions. Source material can range from memory to photo images and anything in between, and it is up to the artist to have this material on hand.

Ann Toebbe, Frogger, gouache, oil, and paper collage on panel, 24 x 30 in.

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Ann Toebbe (she/her) lives in Chicago. The primary focus of her paintings is domestic life. Toebbe’s process is labor intensive, employing freehand painting, flat geometry, geometric abstraction and intricate patterning. Her paintings are often multi-media works with furniture and objects collaged on the surface cut from paper the artist paints in her studio. Drawing on folk art and Indian Miniature paintings her compositions play with flatness and multiple points of views. Each painting can simultaneously have inside and outside views, views from above, and objects and figures portrayed from a straight on view.