Course Description

Style differs but the shared search for a translation of sensation is at the heart of great landscape painting. Working outdoors in the fields and gardens of the impressive grounds located at Old Westbury Gardens, this two-week Painting Marathon will take on the challenge of painting the landscape from direct perception. Working between morning and afternoon paintings, at times extended to multiple days on the same image, students will learn how to translate their experience of light, color, space, and form into paint.

Painting directly outdoors has informed the language of artists historically from Constable to Turner; Courbet and Manet to Cézanne; through to 20^th century modernists like Matisse, Morandi, Bonnard, and continuing to the present. Landscape painting presents a host of surprises and challenges. In many ways, landscape acts upon the artist viscerally. It is the most immersive means of confronting nature.

“I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas.” – John Constable

“When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.” – John Constable

Participating artists should expect to travel out to Westbury Gardens via a private bus during most days of the course and to paint at the New York Studio School in Manhattan on the remaining “studio” days.

The higher cost for this Marathon reflects location fees and additional costs of transportation to and from Old Westbury.

Course Syllabus