Capturing the Moment in Plein Aire, Geoff Allen Instructor
When:
May 7 through 10, 2025
Where:
Sons of the Utah Pioneers
3301 E Louise Ave, Millcreek, UT 84109
Geoff Allen will also be presenting a demonstration on Tuesday May 6th, 7 pm
Learn the joys of capturing the moment, color and mood in watercolor.
This workshop will cover the basic watercolor handling techniques that can speed up your process, loosen you up, and increase your success in capturing outdoor scenes. Beginning and intermediate topics will be covered in the studio and outdoors in plein air.
There will be daily skill building exercises focusing on controlling paper moisture, mixtures, and
timing. Geoff’s demonstrations will review materials, and illustrate how all these techniques
flow together and show students how to “keep it fresh”.
Geoff’s daily demos will cover how to take your inspiration through a process of simplification
while enhancing design dynamics, expression, and creating atmosphere. It all starts with
practicing watercolor’s quartet of skills; values, shapes, color, and mark making. Geoff will be
following up individually with students to reinforce concepts and skills at their easel.
Day One: In the classroom beginning with the basics of watercolor handling with learning how
to read moisture in the paper in order to respond with a brush mixture. The class will focus on
understanding a three value approach to applying watercolor layers and how drawing a
preliminary sketch can loosen up your watercolors. There will be a total of three
demonstrations on this day.
Day Two: Geoff will demonstrate in the morning outdoors near our venue, followed by a
student paint session. There will be a shorter demonstration in the afternoon of capturing
figures in the landscape.
Day Three: The class will meet at a location TBD for a morning demo by Geoff that will focus on
atmosphere and trees, followed by a student painting session. There will be a brief demo on
painting clouds if time allows. The class will meet for a quick sharing of students’ work at the
workshop venue.
