NEW! Painting Rocks & Water at Jackson Falls w/ Tom Hughes (oil, acrylic or watercolor)
- Date: July 19-20, 2025
- Time: 9am-4pm
- Age: adults & high school aged students
- Price: $325
- Artist: Tom Hughes
- Website: https://www.tomhughespaintings.com/links.php?336867
Join award winning and nationally recognized artist Tom Hughes for a two-day weekend workshop in the White Mountains of NH. Tom will guide participants in painting rocks and water at Jackson Falls. Students will learn how to paint the broad shapes and rhythms in the stationary rocks as well as the moving elements in the water. Close attention twill be placed on value. Students will learn how to paint rocks and make them feel solid. This will be complimented by the transparent, reflective, and foaming water, and other elements in the landscape. Through demonstration and individual attention, Tom will guide students with color so it looks as natural on canvas as it does in the landscape.
On the first day, students will jump right into painting with one-on-one attention from the instructor. After lunch, Tom will give a painting demo addressing issues from earlier in the day. On day two, there will be an enjoyable value exercise lesson first thing in the morning. It will help students make sense of what they are seeing by separating value from color. After lunch, students will paint in full color for the remainder of the day with instruction at the easel. Class size is limited to 10 people to allow for individual attention. Students are responsible for bringing their own supplies and can work in oils, acrylics or watercolor. All levels welcome.
July 19 & 20, 9am-4pm $325 (more info about meeting location prior to class)
You can learn more about the artist and see his work at https://www.tomhughespaintings.com/links.php?336867
Cancellation Policy: We ask that you to give us three weeks notice if you need to cancel for a full refund minus a $30 cancellation fee. Cancellations should be made by phone by calling (603) 387-3463. This provides us the opportunity to fill the space. We are sorry, but we cannot give refunds or issue credits for missed classes or no shows.
SUPPLY LIST:
Materials: students can choose their medium-oil.acrylic or watercolor
Bring your typical oil, acrylic or watercolor palette – feel free to bring your regular palette of colors, plus black for the value exercise on day two:
Oil Palette:
titanium white
cadmium lemon
cadmium yellow medium or deep
cadmium orange
cadmium red light or medium
quinacridone red – any sort of cool red or crimson is fine ultramarine blue
cobalt blue
phthalo blue
one or more of these greens: viridian, sap green, some sort of mixed yellowish green (eg Utrecht Brilliant Green)
black or umber
burnt sienna
raw sienna or yellow ochre
Tom’s usual watercolor palette, always subject to change:
ultramarine
cobalt blue
cerulean blue
phthalo blue
white
cadmium lemon
cadmium yellow medium or deep cadmium orange
cadmium red quinacridone red cobalt violet
raw sienna
burnt sienna
raw umber
oxide of chromium green viridian or emerald green lamp black
watercolor brushes include several large flats – bring a one inch sable or synthetic flat at least
rounds in various sizes – large to small
professional quality 100% rag paper (watercolor) is much better than cheaper options
Also Bring:
Plein Air Easel for painting outdoors
Palette – most plein air easels come with a palette. I favor a wooden palette, or, for acrylic, a glass palette.
Rags, paper towels, or kleenex – for wiping brushes, general cleanup.
A few canvases or panel to paint on – stretched canvas, canvas board, primed masonite, primed paper, etc. Panels (masonite or mdf),
Palette knife (for oil and acrylic) – you realize how important this is when you forget to pack it.
Paint thinner – Gamsol and Turpenoid
Cans – I clamp (spring clamps) a coffee or soup can on either side of the drawer of my easel; one to hold brushes, the other to hold thinner. I also use spring clamps to hold my palette steady.
Trash bags
Sunscreen & bug spray
Water and food (lunch can be picked up)
Clothing: be prepared for weather
Optional: umbrella to block sun
Tom Hughes was born in Massachusetts in 1965. He was a staff artist at the Christian Science Monitor newspaper in Boston in the 1980’s, finally leaving to practice fine art, at which he’s been occupied for more than 30 years. Once referred to as “a genius” by late, renowned artist and author Charles Movalli, Hughes has had solo exhibitions in galleries in the New England States, North Carolina, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and France. He is proficient in several painting media including oil, acrylic, and watercolor, with subject matter comprised of figure painting, portrait, landscape and the odd still life or genre picture. Hughes’s work has been featured in American Artist Watercolor magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur, for which he painted the the magazine’s publisher B. Eric Rhoads’s portrait, and Southwest Art magazine. An example of Hughes’s watercolor painting is featured in Watercolor Painting by Tom Hoffmann (Watson Guptill, 2012). In 2019, Tom Hughes won the $15,000 Grand Prize for painting at the Plein Air Convention and Expo, held in San Francisco. In 2018, Tom Hughes was made a signature member of the Plein Air Painters of America. After 21 years in California, Hughes has moved back to his native New England.
