May Flowers: An Oil Painting Workshop with Christina Weaver

May 22-24 10:00 am-4:00 pm EST Instructor:  Christina Weaver All levels are welcome! We are excited to welcome Christina Weaver back to the atelier!  Flowers, with their striking colors, varied shapes, and delicate textures, offer endless opportunities for oil painters. In this 3-day studio workshop, we will paint fresh blooms directly from life. Simple, naturally lit arrangements will guide our studies of value, color, and form. The materiality of oil—its viscosity, depth, and luminosity— mirrors the living qualities of flowers; transparency, opacity, and layered application translate floral nuance into blossoms while creating a rich, responsive surface. Through sustained looking, we will address subtle changes over time— light drifting across a petal, shifting hues tuned to the sun, twisting leaves and bending stems. As flowers open, turn, or begin to fade, we will anchor our paintings in what remains constant while attending to what changes. Students will refine drawing skills and strengthen their command of oil paint—mixing color with intention, controlling value structure, and building form efficiently—so that technical choices support the act of seeing and preserve the immediacy of initial reactions. Composition will grow organically from observation, where scale, placement, and cropping are determined by the structure of the still life, the passage of time, and the edges of the picture plane. Focus on geometry encourages strong design and gives access to complex subjects, where parts and negative spaces are woven together to create a compositional whole. Through this process, we will gain proficiency in oil while developing a deeper connection to the particular beauty and fleeting nature of flowers. Instruction will include demonstrations, slide presentations, one-on-one guidance, and informal critique. Immerse yourself in focusing on nature and beauty for three days! CLICK HERE for materials list About the instructor: Christina Weaver (born 1987) grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. She studied painting and drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Indiana University Bloomington. Christina has received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for artists who work representationally and in 2015, she was a resident artist at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has taught in a variety of settings and is currently an instructor of drawing and painting at the University of North Carolina in Asheville. Her work is exhibited nationwide, collected worldwide, and has been featured in The Artist’s Magazine, Southwest Art, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Christina lives near Waynesville, North Carolina, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We are unable to issue refunds or exchanges for visiting artist workshops unless the workshop is canceled by Townsend Atelier.  In the event there is a waiting list, and we can fill a cancelled spot with someone on the wait list, our general cancellation policy applies.