Two Summer Online Workshops with Joseph Mann

I am here to report that there are some positive aspects to online learning! This past term I taught Life Drawing online at PCC and it was eye opening for me. Of course, there are many shortfalls to distance learning when working with the human figure, however, I discovered some things that seem to actually be better taught online than with the model present.

For several terms I taught Composition at PNCA and I have taught over 150 sections of Drawing. And although there is real and constant overlap of these topics, there are aspects that keep them apart. Composition includes the figure plus the synthetic aspects of design that bind the many areas of the image.

To keep this online exploration going, this summer I am offering two, week long, online workshops. They will be based on compositional ideas which include the elements of design: line, value, shape, balance, pattern, and respect for the 2 dimensions.

At this point, the plan is to make preliminary drawings based on ideas from artists who have mastered these ideas, including: Susan Lichtman, George Johanson, Max Beckman, Mary Cassatt, Warrington Colescott, Picasso, David Park, the list goes on. I am hesitant to say exactly how this will culminate but you will come away with a richer understanding of the tools afforded to artists as we head towards creating a painting.

Summer Online Workshop I

Dates:
Monday, July 20th – Friday, June 24th
Time:
9:30 a.m. PowerPoint and conversation and then we will reconvene a couple of hours later to discuss the day’s work.
Location:
Online via Zoom
Fees:
Workshop Fee: $250

Summer Online Workshop II

Dates:
Monday, August 3rd – Friday, August 7th
Time:
9:30 a.m. PowerPoint and conversation and then we will reconvene a couple of hours later to discuss the day’s work.
Location:
Online via Zoom
Fees:
Workshop Fee: $250

Class Registration:

For more information, registration, questions and scholarship availability, contact me at:
josephemann@msn.com

Testimonials

“Your classes have taught me to ask what is essential? What do I care about? What have I overlooked? You taught me to continue searching for the balance between the poetic and the structural. You created a safe environment in which I am free to paint, draw and face the demons of the day.”
Julie Davis, Intensive student

“In all the years I've spent as a student, I have never had a more positively influential teacher.”
Susan Nelson, PSU Student

“I am endlessly impressed with your capacity to hold all of us, as we struggle and evolve and slip ahead and back again. I don't see how you do it, but am grateful for your strength and steadiness. I thought again about the critique and how carefully and consistently you handled reticence. You stayed your course, didn't recoil, didn't try to fix people, met each person where they stood—that in itself is a great lesson to those of us present, since in the end all there is to do is witness the storms, have compassion, stay the course and keep painting.”
Sally Retecki, Intensive student

“Joseph Mann is one of those extraordinary teachers who combines a rich and deep knowledge of art history with a keen eye for teaching to the individual. He is one of the few who could be called a ‘master teacher’.”
E.W. Ross, Dean
Division of Continuing Studies and Special Programs
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Ox-Box Program Director

Guest Artists/Colleagues

Joseph regularly invites artists to talk about their work and colleagues to teach in his workshops. Among those who have partiipcated in past workshops are:

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