COLOR: FOOD FOR THOUGHT
An online workshop with:
NANCY McCARTHY
CATHERINE KEHOE
SUSAN LICHTMAN
One workshop in three parts
Nine weekly meetings
Each artist will teach a three-week segment
Wednesdays, January 14 - March 11, 2026
11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. eastern time
TO REGISTER, FOLLOW THE LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE
WITH NANCY McCARTHY
Wednesdays
January 14
January 21
January 28
11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. eastern time
ONLINE: The splendid colors of radicchio, pomegranate, clementines, and more will be the subject of our studies from observation. By examining essential color concepts such as value, hue, and saturation, we will deepen our sensitivity to those elements. In addition to working from observation, we will build color relationships independent of imagery to strengthen our understanding of how color functions. Doing so will increase our options and serve our personal goals in painting. This intensive workshop is meant for anyone who has done some or a lot of painting. Open to all opaque mediums (acrylic, oil or gouache).
WITH CATHERINE KEHOE
Wednesdays
February 4
February 11
February 18
11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. eastern time
ONLINE: Paintings of food by pre-1900 still life painters such as Rachel Ruysch, Clara Peeters, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Anne Vallayer Coster, Jean Siméon Chardin, and others, will be the source for a deep dive into color. A series of exercises will invite you to pare your chosen source image down to the essential. We will begin with a drawing method that involves mapping the relationships between objects and the rectangle. Shape will be central to our approach — reducing the complex motif to 10-15 shapes will bring the focus to color mixing and value structure. You will use several complementary-pair mixtures to make beautiful mud as a way of taking liberties with the colors in your source image. In doing so, you will discover the nature of a few paint colors at a time, in terms of opacity, transparency, and relative tinting strength. This rigorous and wide-ranging analysis of images from our painting ancestors will feed your own work and imagination as you engage with images that speak to us still. Suggested medium: oil paint.
WITH SUSAN LICHTMAN
Wednesdays
February 25
March 4
March 11
11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. eastern time
“The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit... and the arbitrariness serves only to obtain precision of execution.”
(Igor Stravinsky)
"You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.
(Julia Child)
ONLINE: In this workshop segment, we will paint simple meals with restricted color recipes. The subject will be the kitchen still life, the snack, a breakfast plate or a luncheon buffet. Figures might play a role in these domestic arrangements. The medium will be limited palettes of two varieties: First, we will explore palettes with a small number of hues, as in a Venetian or Zorn palette, to create a harmonious rich world of color. Second, we will work with “close value” tones, and their ability to create an illusion of air, mystery and tranquility. How can restrictions of color embolden a painter and offer opportunities for expression? What can these modest meals tell us about the people who will eat this food? We will look at examples of limited palette paintings from all eras and global areas. Instruction will focus on the technical challenges and fun of working with formal constraints.