Info for Phil Sandusky’s Plein Air Landscape / Architectural Painting / Drawing Workshop at Saint Joseph Abbey Feb 28 – March 02 2023 75376 River Road, Covington, LA 70435
Students may pursue plein air landscape and/or architectural painting and/or drawing (I’ve decided to add the drawing component to attract a bigger audience and to emphasize in the workshop title that there are both compelling pure landscape subjects as well as magnificent architecture). Students are encouraged to stay overnight in the Saint Joseph Abbey’s Retreat Center for the duration of the workshop with 3 meals/day provided. Photos of the retreat center accommodations are shown below. Students may also attend the workshop without staying overnight but must pay the visitor’s center for the meals, regardless of whether or not they stay overnight. We must have at least 10 students staying overnight to make the workshop plausible.
Tuition for each student is $300
Total cost per student:
Overnight student:
Should arrive/check-in between 4 and 6pm Feb 27 and dinner that night will be the first meal
Visitor’s Center: $434 – this includes 3 nights in a room and 9 meals
Tuition: $300
Total: $734
Overnight student must be checked out by 9am on Thursday, March 2 but both breakfast and lunch will be served on that day.
Day student:
Retreat center: $270 – this is for 9 meals
Tuition: $300
Total: $570
Retreat center fee must be paid by the student through the retreat center by contacting Jill Richard at 985-892-3473
Tuition must be paid to Phil Sandusky
A full refund will be issued for tuition and the visitor’s center fees for cancelations 2 weeks before the workshop (on or before Feb 1 2022).
The workshop enrolment will be open until late January or until it has 14 students and will be cancelled Feb 1 if there is inadequate enrolment.
Phil Sandusky’s St. Joseph’s Abbey Plein Air Landscape Painting / Drawing Workshop Description
Students can focus on drawing and/or painting. There are great benefits that each provide. I’m happy to discuss this when you contact me.
For drawing and painting, I emphasize a succinct approach, showing students the importance of a strong, simplified statement of the whole. I help students to see shapes, patterns, and color relationships and coach them to improve their work by making the simplified statement stronger rather than being lured into the usual pitfall of trying to improve their work through adding more detail and polish.
The workshop is three days long. Each day there’s a three-hour session in the morning, a break for lunch, and a three-hour session in the afternoon. Of course students can work earlier, later, and in between if they like. Staying overnight in the visitor center gives much latitude. In the morning of the first day, painting students will apply an imprimatura to their canvases, after which I’ll demonstrate both drawing and painting for the whole group. After the demonstration, painting students will work on different canvases in the morning and afternoon to accommodate the changing light. They should have other fresh canvases available in case, during any given session, a mostly sunny sky becomes mostly cloudy or vice versa. Drawing students will focus more on form and not be encumbered as much by changing light, though I suggest a goal of producing more simplified drawings rather than fewer that are highly detailed.
My teaching employs a great deal of demonstration as well as criticism throughout the workshop, which I do for individual students or groups of students as needed. For painting, I prefer to demonstrate on canvas boards more often than working on students’ canvases when possible so that students can compare where they are to the direction I would suggest.
In February the chance of rain is lower than average but in case of rain, given that I only work from life, there are covered areas on the Abbey grounds protected from the rain from which there are good views to paint from the landscape. If the weather is too severe, students may work from photo references as a last resort.
In the evenings after dinner I’ll give PowerPoint presentations on various art topics that are optional for students to attend and we’ll have open discussions.
Here are images of some of the subject matter on the Abbey grounds, the visitor center accommodations, and the art studio in case of rain. I’ve also included a few of my paintings.
