Date recorded: Friday, April 4, 2025
Medium: All
Many painters are drawn to abstraction, but are unsure where to begin. Is it simply a matter of taking an “anything goes” approach? Absolutely not! Abstraction requires a command of the formal elements of painting — composition, value, color, form, depth, movement — just as much as good representational painting does. The key difference? In abstraction, these formal elements become the primary visual experience, while the narrative (subject and “things”) takes a more recessive role.
In this Technique Takeaway, landscape painter Mitchell Albala will show practical ways of inducing abstraction:
After a comprehensive presentation featuring diverse semi-abstract painters, and examples from his own process, Mitchell will demonstrate two exercises you can use to bring abstraction into your own work.
Note: This session will focus on a semi-abstract approach, as opposed to pure abstraction. Examples and exercises are geared toward observation, and extrapolate from there.
In stock
$40 for one year
Mitchell Albala is an award-winning landscape painter, workshop instructor, and author. His semi-abstract and atmospheric landscapes have been exhibited nationally and are represented in corporate and private collections. He is the author of two best-selling books on landscape painting: Landscape Painting: Essential Concepts and Techniques for Plein Air and Studio Practice (Watson-Guptill, 2009), with over 60,000 copies in print; and The Landscape Painter’s Workbook: Essential Studies in Shape, Composition, and Color (Rockport Publishers, 2022), which is currently the #1 selling book on landscape in the nation. Mitchell leads plein air workshops in Italy and teaches workshops throughout the Pacific Northwest. He has lectured on Impressionism and landscape painting at the Seattle Art Museum and has written for International Artist and Artists & Illustrators magazines. Mitchell also hosts a popular painting blog, which is among feedspot.com’s “Top 100 Painting Blogs for Artists.”
About Our Past Technique Takeaways:
Discover specific art techniques that you can ‘take away’ from some of your favorite artists and apply to your own work. This one-and-a-half hour recorded presentation will showcase a process that the artist incorporates in their art practice. Instruction will be through a combination of lecture and demonstration.
You’ll be able to watch the class recording as many times as you would like for one year unless otherwise specified in the product description. (If an instructor wishes their recordings to be available for less than a year, we defer to instructor preferences.) There are no ongoing charges and your access will automatically end.
A link to the recording will be included in your on-screen purchase confirmation, in your purchase confirmation email and on your Online Classrooms page.
(There is no Zoom link for this event because it has already taken place).
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