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This 3.5-day workshop introduces mediums including Galkyd, Galkyd Gel, and Cold Wax as an addition to your current oil painting practice. The workshop blends instructor demos with guided exercises and personal experimentation and exploration. You will gain hands-on experience using new techniques, materials, and tools. Demos will include work on paper, wood panel, and stretched linen. Individual and group discussion focuses on composition, seeing and reacting, abstracted and simplified shapes, using unique and unconventional color, and unique and unconventional mark-making. Group and individual critiques throughout the workshop offer an opportunity to share ideas and learn from others. Class size is limited to ensure personal attention and ample one-on-one discussion time with the instructor.
Painting the landscape in abstract allows for individual and unique interpretation of what you see in a scene. Through distilling and simplifying the elements, your paintings become a translation of your personal experience. You’ll be encouraged to challenge yourself with new ways to interpret what you see. You’ll learn to translate your interpretation and create the foundation of a strong abstract landscape painting by exploring unique color use, adding texture, simplifying and rendering shapes in a way that suggests without telling all, and unique composition.
The workshop includes:
-instructor demos
-hands-on studio time
-guided exercises to explore color, texture, and composition
-ample individual time to experiment with new techniques, tools, and materials
-cold wax medium and samples of other mediums provided
-focused, individual attention in a small group setting
-group discussion and critique
Class size 12
Level Intermediate and above
Student Supply List
See Supply List
Mark Witzling spent his professional brand marketing career around writers, designers and artists who visually shaped his ideas. It was during a trip to Italy that he was moved to helm his own creative trek. Stirred by the frescos of Rome and Florence, where art was intended to be part of the landscape, he picked up a brush when he returned home, diving headfirst into a variety of creative experiences to unleash his own artistic ambition. His foundation began in representational oil painting, but the combination of oil and malleable cold wax together with more introspective subjects steered him toward abstraction. Mark has studied in studios across the country and his work is in the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe and in collections across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. His work appears in the book Cold Wax Medium – Techniques, Concepts, Conversations (Crowell & McLAughlin) and in 2020 and 2021 he was included in Artfolio, A Curated Collection of the World’s Most Exciting Artists. Mark has received several awards and an artist grant from the Regional Arts Commission (St. Louis). He was also selected into the prestigious two-year St. Louis Art Fair Emerging Artist program in 2017-18, and in 2018 he was an artist-in-residence at Chateau Orquevaux in France. He continues to paint regularly in the same studio where he started over 20 years ago. When not in his studio painting, Mark is executive director of Craft Alliance in St. Louis, MO. He holds degrees from Macalester College and Boston University.
Workshops
Abstract Landscape and Nature-Based Painting with Oil and Cold Wax
Class Confirmation
You will receive a registration confirmation via email. If you do not have an email address, you will receive a snail-mail confirmation.
Please read your class confirmation carefully as it may include a supply list and other important details.
Materials Fees
Many classes have materials fees in addition to the tuition. These are identified in the class listing and are usually paid with the tuition payment, however in some cases materials fees are paid directly to the instructor at class time (check the class listing).
Cancellation Policy
While we recognize that life intrudes and plans change, in consideration of the time and energy instructors invest in preparing for classes, we must adhere to the following cancellation policies:
Student cancellations
> Cancellations made 31 days before the published registration deadline date for any given workshop are eligible for a full refund less 25% of the workshop fee OR a gift certificate in the full amount of the workshop fee. The gift certificate can be applied to workshops or lodging through Dec. 31 of the following year and is transferable.
> Cancellations made 30 days or less than the published registration deadline date for any given workshop are not eligible for refunds. We encourage all students to purchase trip insurance.
> Cancellation requests must be made by calling our office at (608) 987-3292.
> If you have booked lodging with Shake Rag Alley in conjunction with your class, please refer to our lodging page for the lodging cancellation policy.
Cancellations by Shake Rag Alley
> If Shake Rag Alley must cancel a class you will be notified immediately via email or phone and will receive a full refund.
> If a class does not meet a minimum number of students, it may be cancelled. A decision to cancel a class due to under enrollment will be made on the day following the published registration deadline.
> If you have booked lodging with Shake Rag Alley in conjunction with a class cancelled by Shake Rag Alley, you may receive a full refund on lodging should you wish to cancel the lodging. Please call the office at (608) 987-3292.
Waiting Lists
If a workshop you are interested in is sold out, please fill out this waiting list form. We will contact you if a spot becomes available. The class code requested on the form is the Workshop ID shown at left, beneath the Add to Cart button.
18 Shake Rag St.
Mineral Point, WI 53565
(608) 987-3292
