Painting & Drawing
Code: D1124-25
-
IV
Level IV
Students have advanced skill and knowledge of painting and drawing. Students are highly motivated and self-directed, have a minimum of five years experience in their field and have multiple portfolios of their artwork. Portfolio review is required for admittance to some Level IV classes.
Advanced Mentored Studies: Topics in Painting: Studio Practice and Critique
Aug 11 - 15, 2025
9AM - 5PM
Tuition: $2,730.00
Studio Fee: $125.00
Registration Fee: $45.00
NEW: Tuition includes the welcome dinner and daily lunch
Registration Information
Concept
This three-year advanced mentorship program encourages students to push their studio practice. Working at a rigorous pace, engaging in critical dialogue with the group and with the instructors in individual critique, artists refine and expand their investigations. Wide-ranging topics include concept and approach to contemporary art practice as well as technical and material explorations. Students are expected to work independently with the support of their class peers and instructors, raising the ambition of their own studio goals. Although primarily a painting workshop, participation by installation artists and other artists working across media is encouraged. The goal of the series is for students to gain community, develop insight into their work and, through discussion, challenge themselves to reflect on their artistic intentions.
2025 is the first year of this three-year intensive program. In the subsequent two years of the program, the cohort meets in-person at Anderson Ranch from August 10th – 14th, 2026 and August 16th – 20th, 2027. Over the course of the program, there are group and one-on-one meetings via Zoom in March and October of each year. The final meeting is via Zoom in October 2027. Tuition listed is the program cost per year.
TO APPLY: Applications for enrollment are accepted on a rolling basis. To apply, please fill out the 2025 Advanced Mentored Studies Online Application Form. This is a rolling application with a priority deadline of Monday, February 3rd.
Media & Techniques
Materials of students’ choosing.
Faculty
Holly Hughes
Holly Hughes is a frequent Ranch faculty member and professor emeritus of painting at Rhode Island School of Design. Having exhibited nationally and internationally, Hughes’ painting has been greatly influenced by both ceramic and printmaking practice and research. She loves “Salon Style” installations—the mixing of these genres on the wall—such as BLAZON created for the Dorsky Museum. Her most recent exhibit was “Salad Days” at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in 2024.
Stephen Westfall
Stephen Westfall received his MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work was represented by Lennon, Weinberg in New York from 1997 to 2019. He is currently represented in New York by Alexandre Gallery. He has had 50 solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Westfall’s are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Metropolitan Museum in New York; the Kemper Museum in Kansas City; the Louisiana Museum in Humleback, Denmark; the Munson Williams Proctor Museum in Utica; New York, the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Library of Congress; the Museum of Art and Architecture at UC Santa Barbara; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and the Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University. Westfall’s own writing has been extensively published in such journals as Arts, Art in America, Flash Art, the Brooklyn Rail, and Bomb among others. He was for years a Contributing Editor to Art in America. He has also authored over a hundred gallery and museum catalog essays, most recently for octogenarian, Susan Fortgang’s critically acclaimed first solo exhibition at Eric Firestone Gallery. Westfall has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Nancy Graves Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He received a Rome Prize Fellowship and spent a year at the American Academy in Rome during 2009-2010. In 2024 he was given the Murray Reich Distinguished Artist Award by the New York Foundation for the Arts. He has been given the title, Professor Emeritus at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where he was Graduate Director from 2010 to 2015, and Undergraduate Director from 2020 to 2021; and a former lecturer and Painting Chair at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, where he taught for 32 years. He has held Distinguished Chairs at Colgate University in 1999 and Princeton University in 2005.
Tuition: $2,730.00
Studio Fee: $125.00
Registration Fee: $45.00
NEW: Tuition includes the welcome dinner and daily lunch
Registration Information
Painting & Drawing
Make, reflect, consider, engage—these are all critical elements of the Painting and Drawing workshops at Anderson Ranch. Our exceptional workshops combine focused, hands-on art making with critical feedback for artists of all levels. Painting and Drawing guest faculty are phenomenal artists and educators with experience supporting students by offering technical knowledge and encouragement.
The bright, natural light of the Wyly Painting and Drawing Building provides an inspiring environment where students can explore and expand their artistic practice. Our facilities are equipped with individual worktables, wall space, easels, rolling palettes, odorless solvents, a wide range of hand tools, computer access with Adobe software, wifi, printing, scanning, and projection capabilities. Spend a week here— or several—and engage in a variety of activities that will fuel your practice throughout the year.
Workshop Details
Workshop Supplies
For general information about studio access, shipping, and more, please visit our info page.
If you have any questions regarding your supplies for your workshop, please contact Lindsey Yeager, [email protected].
Provided by Anderson Ranch
Equipment
- Butcher paper
- Containers
- Cordless drills and impact drivers
- Cutting mats**
- Drawing boards
- Easels
- Gamsol (OMS)**
- Gloves
- Glues**
- Hand tools: hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, clamps
- Laser printer
- Palette knives**
- Palette-topped utility carts
- Presentation projector
- Push pins
- Rags
- Rulers**
- Scanner
- Scissors
- Spray bottles**
- Staple guns
- Stools
- Tape**
- Work tables
What you need to bring
Required Tools and Supplies
- All materials needed to make your work (paint, brushes, surfaces, etc.)**
- Digital portfolio
- Prohibited supplies: power tools, torches, spray paint, encaustic, turpentine, resin, plastisol, any solvent that isn’t low VOC
Optional Tools and Supplies
- White (or light colored) t-shirt for screen printing**
* Available for purchase in the studio.
** Available to purchase at the Anderson Ranch ArtWorks Store for 10% off.
Learn more about shipping supplies and artwork to and from the Ranch in the Student Handbook.
Lodging & Meals
Housing is limited and includes shared and private lodging options. Reservations will be managed on a first-come, first-served basis. The earlier you reserve housing, the better your chance of receiving your preferred option. Please note: Workshop costs do not include accommodations.
NEW: Tuition includes a welcome dinner and lunches. In our effort to foster a stronger sense of community and accessibility at Anderson Ranch, we include the welcome dinner and all lunches as part of the tuition for summer workshop students. Our hope is that this adjustment will encourage all students to come together to share meals and engage in meaningful conversations. The Ranch Café Meal Plan, which is included with Room and Board fees, strives to provide healthy, creative meals that will nourish your artistic creativity. Learn more.
We have established a Business Safety Plan with added layers of precaution that prioritize the health and safety of our staff, students, faculty and guests while continuing to provide you with the Anderson Ranch experience that you know and enjoy.
Related Events
Scholarships, College Credit & Discounts
Making Art Accessible
Applications for scholarship support are encouraged. Specific scholarships are funded by Ranch supporters, either through endowed funds or special gifts.
Many colleges and universities offer college credit for workshops taken at Anderson Ranch. Discounts are available for students and teachers.
You Might Also Be Interested In
-
II
Level II
Students have basic knowledge of 2-D art making including form, negative space, value and line.
-
III
Level III
Students have formal training in critical issues of 2-D art making, experience with public critiques and a solid portfolio of their artwork.
Jun 16 - 20, 2025
9AM-5PM
Oil Painting: Observation and Abstraction
Kenny Rivero
Tuition $1,415
Code D0306-25
This dynamic oil painting workshop for intermediate students emphasizes expanding painting skills and finding new approaches to subject matter. The class engages in prompts as a way to explore content, and offers exercises to build upon painting methods and techniques. Students focus on color mixing using a traditional palette with linseed oil and Gamsol as mediums, developing formal strengths such as composition, and on creating form and spatial relationships. Subject matter prompts encourage mining for content within current events, literary and cinematic material, and other common media consumed within contemporary culture.
-
III
Level III
Students have formal training in critical issues of 2-D art making, experience with public critiques and a solid portfolio of their artwork.
Jun 23 - 27, 2025
9AM-5PM
Accessing the Abstract
Rema Ghuloum
Tuition $1,415
Code D0408-25
In this rigorous and productive painting course, we explore the generative elements of our individual and shared visual language as it relates to abstract painting. Through daily assignments, prompts, and a series of one-on-one and group critiques, we focus on how to access our inherent intentions in regards to mark making, brushwork, and color and build on our ideas. Students interested in exploring the emotive qualities of paint and/or the desire to delve into abstraction in their paintings are also welcome to use meditation as a tool. With these exercises, we cultivate our work alongside each other and hone our language to constructively conceive of and discuss our varying artistic processes—and what inspires our work to develop.
-
III
Level III
Students have formal training in critical issues of 2-D art making, experience with public critiques and a solid portfolio of their artwork.
-
IV
Level IV
Students have advanced skill and knowledge of painting and drawing. Students are highly motivated and self-directed, have a minimum of five years experience in their field and have multiple portfolios of their artwork. Portfolio review is required for admittance to some Level IV classes.
Jun 23 - 27, 2025
9AM-5PM
Master Class: Inquiries into Subject Matter, Narrative and Formal Concerns
Becky Suss
Tuition $1,415
Code D0409-25
In this master class workshop for advanced painters, participants come prepared to work on paintings of their choice. If they are unsure of what subject matter they would like to tackle, they may bring a personal object, writing, or photograph as a point of departure to explore their own personal narrative. There are several optional readings that range from fiction to science writing along with an image lecture and a short screening. The majority of class time is spent as studio time along with several group discussions, critiques, and individual meetings with the instructor.