Shoring Up Your Shapes (Online Workshop Webinar) Spring 2026 w/ Edmond Praybe

April 11 to April 25 (Saturdays), 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM, Eastern Time

**All sessions are live and will be recorded. All recordings will be available to students for 6 months after the final session, after 6 months the recording will be deleted.

Please check your email spam/junk folder for your Zoom invite. Our business hours are 10:00 AM through 5:00 PM. All course information and email correspondence will be sent during business hours. If students purchase a course, workshop, demo or recording outside business hours or during the weekend the course information or recording will be sent the following business day.

DEMO: https://youtu.be/wdlq6uFMOMU

Workshop Webinar Description

This 3-week workshop webinar will investigate approaches to structuring a painting as a series of interlocking shape relationships. The instructor will lead detailed demonstrations for each session’s topic and provide supporting examples in the form of slide lectures and visual analysis. Participants will be encouraged to paint on their own either from an instructor’s provided still life source image (photo) or, depending on their comfort or skill level, use their own still life set up or source image. 

Participants will be guided through various ways to think about shapes in a painting, from their value and color, to developing subtle transitions within the compositional shape structure. We will consider how shapes can function to describe volumetric form or draw attention to points of interest. Scenarios for deciding where the edges of a shape in a painting could occur and reasons we might manipulate those boundaries for the sake of the painting will be examined.

We will explore how the same source image/still life could be interpreted to investigate these different possibilities of shape construction. 

This webinar will be conducted once a week via Zoom for topic overviews, instructor demonstrations, slide presentations and project outlines. Each session will be recorded. The instructor will explain technical and conceptual ideas and review historical and contemporary examples for each session’s topic. A series of project prompts based on interpretations of the same source image will be outlined for participants to work on independently.

**Note: there is no Padlet component to this webinar for participant feedback. The webinar is held via Zoom Webinar format.

Some basic familiarity with oil paint will be useful.

Workshop Webinar Outline

Week 1: Organizing Value Shapes

Week 2: Breaking Down Color Shapes

Week 3: Manipulating Shapes to Create Compositional Emphasis

Workshop Webinar Materials

My Current Palette (Oil):

(if there is another palette you are most comfortable with, by all means use it. Likewise substitutes here and there are acceptable as well) Artist grade paint. I use mostly RGH, but any brand you prefer will be fine.

titanium white

cadmium yellow lemon (or light)

indian yellow

raw sienna

cadmium orange or pyrrole orange

cadmium red medium or pyrrole red

quinacridone red

alizarin crimson

quinacridone magenta

ultramarine blue

cobalt blue

phthalo green

-your preferred painting medium (I use Gamblin solvent free liquid medium and CAS textured impasto medium)

-palette (hand held or table)

- suggested brushes

-flat bristle: #2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 at least one of each. One or two smaller soft rounds,

sable or synthetic sable

-palette knife

-container with a lid for solvent or cleaning oil

-odorless mineral spirits or a brush cleaning oil (linseed, safflower, etc.)

-rags or paper towels

Painting Surfaces: 3-6 surfaces primed for painting in oil- paper, canvases, panels, etc. 9”x 12” or larger

Additional Materials to Consider:

-gloves

-yard stick/straight edge

-apron/smock

- white of off-white artist tape (if working on paper, to tape to a board)