This immersive five-day workshop invites artists to embrace a materials-first, process-rich approach to image-making. Through an intuitive sequence of drawing, layering, and transforming, participants will explore ways to move their work forward while engaging the expressive potential of surface, texture, mark, and color.
We begin by building first layers through drawing, acrylic paint, monotypes, and collage, then reworking and embellishing surfaces with drawing oils and R&F Pigment Sticks®. Working on both paper and board, these initial layers establish momentum, structure, and visual history—providing rich surfaces that invite further exploration rather than predetermined outcomes.
As the work develops, artists will continue to draw back into surfaces, shift color relationships, and activate texture through mark making. Emphasis is placed on working intuitively, trusting the process, and learning how to re-enter and revise work as it evolves.
Throughout the week, demonstrations, guided prompts, individual feedback, and group dialogue support each artist in exploring new directions and breaking out of habitual ways of working.
Expect to:
• Work in multiples to loosen perfectionism and discover recurring motifs
• Use color, line, and texture to establish depth, movement, and rhythm
• Explore intuitive approaches to process while developing confidence in decision-making
• Receive individual feedback and engage in group dialogue
Whether you’re an experienced artist looking to refresh your process, or newer to mixed media and ready to explore layered, painterly approaches, this workshop offers a generous and supportive environment for growth and discovery.
All levels welcome. Curiosity required.
Please note there is a materials fee of $35 payable to the instructor.
About Lisa Pressman
Lisa Pressman is a visual artist and educator whose abstract paintings explore memory, materiality, and transformation. Based in New Jersey, she works across encaustic, oil, cold wax, and mixed media, layering and manipulating surfaces through scraping, burning, stitching, and mark-making. These tactile processes reflect an ongoing engagement with themes of impermanence, grief, and the passage of time. Pressman’s compositions often feature luminous color relationships, gestural energy, and excavated textures that evoke both ancient manuscripts and contemporary artifacts.
Her work invites close observation, revealing traces of language, symbolic marks, and richly worked surfaces that suggest both presence and absence. Since the loss of her son in 2019, her material choices and rituals—burning, sewing, layering—have become deeply connected to mourning and memory. Each painting becomes a meditation on what remains, where discovery unfolds through process and perception.
Pressman earned her MFA in Painting from Bard College and a BA in Fine Arts (Ceramics and Sculpture) from Douglass College, Rutgers University. She has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions across the U.S., including at Susan Eley Fine Art (New York and Hudson, NY), Addington Gallery (Chicago), The Painting Center (NYC), Causey Contemporary, and R&F Handmade Paints. Notable solo shows include Messages (2023), Downtown Debut (2022), and Passing Through (2015). Her work has also been exhibited internationally and appears in numerous corporate and private collections, including Hyatt Regency, McKinsey Financial, Omni Hotels, and Sun Chemical Corporation.
In addition to her studio practice, Pressman is a sought-after educator and workshop leader, teaching nationally and internationally at universities, art centers, and conferences, including The International Encaustic Conference (Provincetown, MA), where she has also curated and presented digital studio tours. She has served as a juror and curator, most recently for The Blue Show at The Painting Center (NYC) and Sense of Place at Monmouth University.
Her work has been featured in Cold Wax Medium by Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin, the Huffington Post, Art Speak, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.
She is represented by Susan Eley Fine Art (NYC and Hudson, NY) and Addington Gallery (Chicago).
Rates & Enrollment
Day Student Tuition: $1,170.00
Full 5-Day Package*: $2,887.85 – $3,101.69
*5-Day Workshop Package includes: Tuition for 5 full class days, 6 nights of dinner, lodging, breakfast, daily cookie and fruit breaks, unlimited coffee and tea, and welcoming wine and cheese reception. Your choice between a room to yourself (single occupancy) or bring a friend and split a room (double occupancy).
Get more information about your options to enroll here.