Principles of Landscape Painting Workshop with Patrick Okrasinski
Instructor: Patrick Okrasinski
Dates: August 26–30, 2024
Times: 9 am–4 pm (lunch 12-1 pm; participants are asked to bring their own bagged lunch)
Levels/Ages: All levels welcome; ages 15+
This workshop has reached capacity. To join the waitlist, click the button below.
Workshop Location: Multiple plein air venues of historical significance in Old Lyme, Connecticut; in case of inclement weather a studio on the campus of the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts will be reserved. Please note that participants will be asked to walk short distances with materials in tow.
Directions and Parking: Registered students will receive detailed information in advance of the Workshop start date.
Taking place in the historic town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, the “home of American Impressionism,” this Workshop builds connections between 19th-century academic training, Impressionism, New England schools of painting at the turn of the century, and representational painting today. Guided instruction by acclaimed artist Patrick Okrasinski will address theories of value, mass, composition, representing light and color, optical effects encountered outdoors, perspective, and more. Morning demonstrations will include painting basics, from pencil sketch and composition to color-comp study and completion of individual landscape paintings, and will draw from both academic and Impressionist principles. Students will learn how to incorporate these into independent and original landscape paintings, as they enjoy plein air landscape painting in a storied and picturesque setting.
Supplies: Click here for the instructor’s supply list.
Terms: Please review our Terms and Conditions prior to enrollment.
Artist Bio
Patrick Okrasinski first enrolled at the former US branch of the Florence Academy of Art in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 2016, where he studied drawing and painting under Jordan Sokol, Amaya Gurpide, Edmond Rochat, Stephen Bauman, and Cornelia Hermes. There he practiced traditional skills-based methods while simultaneously pursuing landscape painting.
During the summer of 2019, Patrick spent three months as Artist-in-Residence in Giverny, working at Monet’s gardens and in the surrounding French countryside, made famous by the Impressionists.
In 2020 Patrick was awarded the prestigious Donald Jurney Traveling Fellowship, which allowed him to pursue his artistic and academic studies in the great historic and cultural centers of Europe. In 2021, he was part of a select group of painters accepted into the Hudson River Fellowship at Wethersfield, CT.
Instagram: @patrickokra
Website: patrickokrasinski.com
Supply List
Note: Workshop registrants receive 10% off in de Gerenday’s Fine Art Materials and Curiosities, Lyme Academy’s art store.
A portable easel and palette. Whatever works for the size you work at. I have a small box that I can use with a tripod for small paintings up to 9×12 comfortably or attach it to a Richeson field easel which lets me work on paintings up to 16×20, as well as sight size. I have a larger paint box for a Gloucester easel that lets me work on large canvases outdoors, but that is not a requirement for this workshop. French easels are fine for almost any size in reason and are great because they double as a canvas holder when they are set up.
- An assortment of Brushes, I use a lot of hog bristles. Robert Simmons Signet filberts are workhorse. Sometimes I use sables rounds and master’s choice filberts as well.
- A wet brush carrier (I recommend the ArtBin Essentials Brush Box)
- Palette cup, linseed oil for a tiny bit of medium. I don’t use solvent or any complicated mediums
- Palette knife
Oil Colors:
- Titanium white
- Cadmium yellow light (not Lemon)
- Cadmium yellow medium
- Cadmium orange
- Cadmium Red light
- Quinachridone
- Ultramarine
- Prussian Blue
- Viridian
- Ivory Black
- Raw Umber
- Burnt Sienna
- Venetian Red
- Yellow Ochre
- Sketchbook, Pencil, kneaded eraser, vine charcoal
- Assorted painting surfaces and a system to carry/store them. Several 5×7 or 6×8 panels for small sketches. 9×12 panels for several single-session paintings. Several 12×16 or 16×20’s for those signed up for two weeks
- Paper towel and trash bag
- A way to clean your brushes. Throughout the week I can keep my brushes soaked in a little bit of oil to avoid cleaning them every night, but when I do clean my brushes I thoroughly wipe them down with a paper towel, rinse them in turpenoid natural, and then a final wash in a sink with either dish soap or Murphy oil soap.
Hat, sunscreen, bug spray, lawn chair. Be careful for ticks, and have good clothing for the outdoors.
