How to Paint Oils from a Photograph

How to Paint Oils from a Photograph

Class | Available

94 Stafford Ave. Manahawkin, NJ 08050 United States
TBD
Intermediate and Advanced
10/14/2025-10/28/2025
12:00 PM-3:00 PM EDT on Tue
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$115.00
Member Discount Available

How to Paint Oils from a Photograph

Class | Available

Learn to use photographs as a reference or guide and not a goal. Bring your own photographs—any subject you love.  
Through cropping, editing, and color choices, you’ll develop the skills to create strong compositions and expressive paintings that go beyond simply copying an image.
The first class will focus on decision-making to manipulate the photograph for the best composition.
The second will be mapping in your values.
The third class you will finish up with only the most important details.
The focus is on learning and exploration, not perfection. You may not finish a painting in class—but you’ll gain tools, techniques, and confidence that you can use long after the workshop ends.
The goal is learning, not necessarily finishing a painting in class.

  • Note: the sample picture does not dictate the subject.  You choose your own subject to bring to class.
  • Supplies: Canvas…no larger than 16x20
                      Odorless turpentine
                      Palette
                       Brushes…the largest that you’re comfortable using
                       Paper towels or rags
                       Reference photo…no smaller than 6x8
                       Oil paints: Titanium white, Cad yellow light(lemon), Cad red light, Alizarin, Yellow ochre Burnt sienna, Ultramarine blue and Ivory black.
    Arlene Marcoe-Davis

    For as far as I can remember making art in its many forms is the way that I express myself in this world. In school I studied drawing, ceramics, painting, jewelry and stage design and leaving with a modest scholarship I intended to attend the Art Student League in NYC. Fate however had other plans and I moved to the Island of Maui.
    I was an active member of the Lahaina Art Society and the Hui No’Eau. I furthered my studies with seminars on the mainland with master pastelist Albert Handel and Daniel Greene as well as watercolorist, Judi Betts. After 25 years in the islandsI found myself here in New Jersey and I took advantage of being able to study portraiture and anatomy with instructor Al Gury at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. It was then that I fell in love with oil paint.
    Today I work in my studio that overlooks the marshland of South 
    Jersey. I know longer paint for prizes or profit, just the sheer joy of it. I recently withdrew my membership to the Salmagundi Club in NYC and am enjoying teaching locally.