SCHEDULE OF EVENTS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE!

AMI Credits

Sunday, August 7

Make Your Own Hardcover Sketchbook – Gretchen Kai Halpert
1-5pm; Turrets 1&2 (1st floor)
Level: All; Limit 15

Supply List

Making your own sketchbook allows you to choose and combine a variety of papers under one cover. Papers will be selected for watercolor, pen and ink, color pencil, graphite, markers, cray-pas, pastel…. With little to no gluing and some basic sewing, participants will construct a decorative and sturdy hard-cover, soft-spined book to use throughout the conference. Once participants learn this construction method, they will be able to make books of any size for any purpose. Examples of other construction designs will be displayed.

Drawing The Maine Landscape – Jane Neroni
8:30 am-12:30 pm; Turrets porch
Level: All; Limit 15

Supply List

The beautiful landscapes of New England cry out to be captured, yet trying to get these complex subjects on paper can be overwhelming. This workshop seeks to demystify the process and provides participants with the skills to approach rendering the landscape with confidence. Using the beautiful and varied landscape of the College of the Atlantic as our inspiration, our subjects will run from views of Frenchman's Bay and the Porcupine Islands to more intimate close-ups of perennial gardens, meadow and forested glens. Jane will teach how to use a flexible viewfinder and thumbnail drawings to isolate different subjects and simplify compositions. Other exercises will concentrate on becoming familiar with a four-value system to suggest form, light, shadow, and interesting atmospheric effects. An assortment of media (graphite, pen and ink, watercolor and colored pencils) will be demonstrated and used during the workshop.

Stretching Your Sketch - Mixed Mediums For Your Sketchbooks – Kristine Kirkeby
8:30 am-12:30 pm; Bio Lab
Level: All; Limit 15

Supply List

Ready to try something different in your sketchbooks? This workshop will stretch our working knapsack of the usual sketching art materials. We'll try out some camping mediums, work with an adaptation of Jerry Hodges' coffee grounds technique, and explore the realm of painting light at night. Using these techniques you can also expand how your sketchbooks express a sense of place. Kris used the techniques and materials in a travel journal. You'll see one way of using these different mediums for fun, variety, and different effects. You take beyond that! If you are a purist, you won't enjoy the class, if you are ready to try something new–join us!

Botanical Illustration - Ink With Pen and Brush – Alice Tangerini
1-5pm; Turrets 3
Level: All; Limit 12
Prerequisite: Some familiarity using dip pens

Supply List

Illustrating botanical subjects in pen and ink can be challenging. Learn how to create movement and interest in your lines while capturing the characteristics of the plant in a black-and-white medium. Participants will portray a chosen botanical subject in ink using brushes, dip pens and rapidograph pens on drafting film. Good line quality and control of the brush and pen will be emphasized to present the subject matter clearly and accurately.

Bar Harbor Coastal Path Sketching – Merri Nelson
1-5pm;
Limit 15

Supply List

Wildlife Painting in Watercolor – Peggy Macnamara
9am-5pm; Art Studio 1
Level: All; Limit 15
Prerequisite: Some experience w/watercolor

Supply List

Peggy Macnamara will teach her unique multi layering watercolor technique for painting wildlife. While painting their own subjects, participants will learn the use of many transparent layers to build solid form within strong grays, browns, and vivid colors. Peggy will demonstrate the gradual use of thicker paint and other techniques to create lifelike renderings of birds, mammals, insects and reptiles. Also, the practical solutions to working on large format (40x60”) paper will be discussed.

Sculpting with Polymer Clay – Scott Rawlins
9am-5pm; Location: Turrets 1
Level: All; Limit 12

Supply List

The difference between a successful and an unsuccessful interpretation of a biological subject can sometimes be attributed to an inability to recreate form convincingly. Scientific illustrators frequently work from flattened source materials, such as herbarium mounts or photographs. Because of this, the ability to visualize the subjects three-dimensionally is essential, and practice building scale models can be of great value. Moreover, museums and universities frequently use models to portray the morphology of organisms that are difficult to preserve or hard to see; thus knowledge of basic model making techniques should be included in the repertoire of every scientific artist.

Participants in this workshop will experiment with polymer clay (i.e., Sculpey), and learn how to recreate various subjects three-dimensionally and paint them realistically.

Acrylic and Color Pencil Technique – Dolores R. Santoliquido
9am-5pm; Turrets 2
Level: All; Limit 12

Supply List

The use of acrylic and colored pencils results in illustrations that have great reproductive quality and luminosity. The instructor will give a hands-on demonstration and thoroughly explain the technique of layering glazes of color pencil and acrylic paint to produce transparent renderings. This technique allows for tremendous detail. Participants will work with their choice of natural science subjects (please bring your choice of subject matter to paint, i.e. a shell, insect, small plant, etc.). Instruction will emphasize specific techniques for producing transparent results. Expect to complete at least one painting.

Life Drawing Workshop – John Cody
9am-Noon; Studio 1
Level: All; Limit 15

Supply List

Practice capturing the human form in the medium of your choice. Poses of various time lengths will be offered.

Color Theory for the Natural Science Painter – Louisa Rawle Tiné
9-noon; Bio Lab
Level: All; Limit 15

Supply List

Color theory and color mixing can often be a confusing, frustrating, time consuming ordeal. Louisa Rawle Tiné will demystify color theory and teach a simple and elegant process for accurate color mixing. This workshop is geared for all levels of artists. Through a series of structured exercises, she will show how to mix vibrant and subtle colors for the natural science painter. We will also discuss how to mix greens, greys and browns, and how to handle whites. We will be using transparent watercolors for all of the exercises.

Nature Drawing with Colored Inks – Suzanne Wegener
1-5pm; Bio Lab
Level: All; Limit 20
Prerequisite: Some experience w/pen & ink

Supply List

Pen & ink is a medium long used in natural science and medical illustration. With the new colored inks available this technique is even more exciting. Colored inks can be used to capture the bright iridescence found in insects and feathers. They also lend themselves to the subtle earthy colors found in botanical specimens. Learn to work with permanent inks to render a variety of natural subjects. We will use glazes, dry brush, and traditional pen & ink techniques using croquill pens.

Pen & Ink or Pencil on Scratchboard – Trudy Nicholson
9am-5pm; Turrets 3
Level: All; Limit 15

Supply List

The goals of this workshop are to introduce participants to the media of ink or pencil on white scratchboard by discussion, demonstrations, slides, examples and practice. Participants will learn the methods of creating textures and the wide range of combinations of textures using the pen and x-acto blade to juxtapose and overlap lines and dots. They will choose subjects, sketch them and transfer them. They will learn to plan a well-balanced dark and light composition using several subjects, and to render their composition in ink or pencil on scratchboard, as well as to convey the form, shading, texture, and spatial placement of each element of their composition with detail and accuracy, completing one ink composition or one graphite pencil composition.

Tiger, tiger burning bright
Make it glow in black and white.
With ink and pencil, your hand and eyes
Will scratch out highlights, crosshatch grays.
Use brazen contrast, detailed line
To make your composition shine.
All this and more await your try
with scratched and textured artistry.

Watercolor and Gouache Painting Techniques-Transparent, Translucent and Opaque Layers – Roberta S. Rosenthal
9am-5pm; Sea Fox
Level: Intermediate - advanced; Limit 8
Prerequisites: Drawing & watercolor skills

Supply List

Paint transparent, translucent and opaque layers
With watercolors and gouache,
Using botanical subjects and landscape environments,
To achieve a painting with panache.
A traditional approach
To make colorful flowers detailed and lush.
Eight students fills the class,
Bring paints, brushes and paper and your water media supplies
This is a workshop you won't want to pass.
We will spend the whole day exploring layers of paint
Capturing delicate petals, textures and light
A meditative painting experience you'll feel like a saint.

Egg Tempera – Karen Ackoff
9am-5pm; Location: TBA
Level: All; Limit 12

Supply List

Egg tempera is a classic technique that dries quickly and lends itself to a sensitive and dramatic interpretation of light and shadow. Traditional and contemporary techniques, such as hatching, scumbling, and glazing, will be covered through a series of exercises. Participants will work toward completing a study of a natural object, such as a shell, bone, insect or botanical specimen.

The instructor will demonstrate the preparation of the egg medium as well as various painting techniques. In addition, the instructor will work with each participant individually to refine his or her skills.

In A Nutshell - An Art & Illustration Process – Margaret Saul
Daily 9am -5pm; Location: Art Studio 1
Level: Intermediate drawing & painting skills; Limit 15

Supply List

Effective, novel ideas and techniques will be presented as Margaret guides participants through her four-stage process for creating botanicals – using whatever fresh plant material is available for class. Media: transparent watercolor, and where applicable color pencil under initial watercolor wash.  Create a unified palette - selecting just three pigments viewed as relating to a plant subject; tonal composition to enhance realism and focal points; ”Detailing” – the last stage of the process, to enhance emphasis, unity and finer applications of color to define for example complex leaf margins. 

While there is not enough time to complete a finely-finished botanical, demonstrations, practical exercises, class discussion, and applications are presented in a manner that allow participants to continue to successfully practice and then readily adopt any part of this approach to enhance their own future works.