“Plein Aire” Spring Painting Class at Serenbe:
The Landscape as Narrative
When: June 14 - August 7, 2010
Instructor: Michael David & Thomas Swanston
Location: Serenbe
Cost: $349 for any 4 sessions (a fifth date may be added for $95)
Experience the inspirational Serenbe and Chattahoochee Hills countryside this summer with Tom Swanston & Michael David in an “anyone, any level, most ages” plein aire painting experience. Serenbe and The Chattahoochee Hills landscape will be the tool we will use to develop a greater understanding of each of our creative processes ~ expressing the various elements through the practice of painting and drawing paired with guided travels through the history of landscape painting over the past 2000 years.. We will go outside with the technique of plein aire painting, (A technical achievement of 1841 made possible because of the ability of paint manufactures to put paint in to new transportable tubes along with “French Easels”) while learning about the history and philosophy of different cultures and different centuries attitude toward the landscape as Art form and of course the contemporary landscape painting field.
We will explore the landscape through the use of drawing and painting: You will become familiar with the principles of drawing and painting such as line, tone, mass, light, composition, positive/negative space, scale, and both analytical and emotional observation. We will do all of this in a supportive atmosphere. The painting program is held every other week so that participants have the opportunity to work for extended periods of time. Presentations and discussion of studio work and will be an ongoing group activity with the goal being, that when you complete the course you will be energized about “plein aire” painting with a well rounded sense of direction for the development of your future painting. Through experiencing the landscape in this way, we learn to express our own individual relationship to its beauty and transformative power.
Michael David
Michael David has taught at Princeton University and the Savannah College of Art And Design, and has lectured at The School of Visual Arts in New York, The New York Studio School and The Art Institute of Chicago. His paintings have been exhibited around the world, and are included in the Permanent Public Collections, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, Houston and Denver Museums among many others. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and awards from American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Albee Foundation. www.michaeldavidartist.com
Thomas Swanston
Tom Swanston has taught at the GLCA New York Arts Program and within the University of Georgia system at Kennesaw and Gordon Colleges, and lectured at The Maryland Institute College of Art. Exhibiting regularly in galleries in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, Naples, New Orleans, and Santa Fe, he has had 14 solo and 46 group exhibitions, included in 8 museum exhibitions and published in over 55 industry and lifestyles magazines. He has been awarded two Ford Foundation grants, a Rubenstein Foundation grant, and been a Fellow at the Hambidge Center for Arts and Sciences.
