- Teacher: Fran O’Neill
- Materials Fee: 0
- Class Length: 4 Day Workshop
- Start Date: Thursday-Sunday, April 9th, 10th, 11th 12th
- Time: 10:00 – 5:00 pm
Fran O’Neill: Abstracts – Drawing Intensive WORKSHOP
This intensive drawing workshop pushes students beyond representation into abstraction through sustained, high-volume work. Beginning with a historical image as source material, participants will transform, fragment, rework, and reconstruct that image through a range of abstraction strategies.
Students will generate a large number of small studies to test compositional shifts, mark-making systems, spatial distortion, and collage interventions. Select drawings will then be developed into larger-scale works, allowing ideas explored in sketch form to expand physically and conceptually.
Emphasis is placed on risk, revision, and material experimentation. Students will cut apart, layer, obscure, redraw, and rebuild their work in order to discover unexpected structures and visual language.
Through studio work, group discussion, and analysis of historical and contemporary artists, participants will develop individual strategies for abstraction and a cohesive body of work.
Final outcome: a focused series or set of resolved drawings demonstrating transformation of source material across scale.
Readings and Resources
- “Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock” – Kirk Varnedoe
- “The Painted Word” – Tom Wolfe
Materials and Supplies
- Basic drawing and painting materials (detailed list provided).
- Optional: Students may bring their own materials and surfaces of choice.
Days will be full, as we will work from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; if there is interest and need, those hours may be extended. The scale of the work will range from moderate to very large as we examine the interaction of the picture plane, along with strategies to explore further pictorial elements of drawing.
A review of each students’ work will form the basis for the culminating critique. The class is open to all however, some drawing experience is best.
Materials and supplies*
Please note, each student’s needs may vary. Some may need to purchase extra materials, depending upon
production.
|
Image attached: Georgia O’Keeffe, Black Place I, 1945,
29 5/8 × 35 11/16 in.
