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This 6-Week LIVE online course explores how to show up fully and make STRONG PAINTING.

Painting is a transformative experience.  A painting is not simply a picture ~ it’s a weave of energy!  How do we bring OUR energy into our work?

Not only can we learn to dig deeply into our painting and end up making strong work, but the activity of painting itself can bring us to our own unique way of painting.

If you’ve been feeling the urge to paint — or perhaps you’ve been painting for some years but haven’t yet found your own personal way of working — this course is structured to bring you into a deeper and more empowered engagement.

Providing a process integrating your inner life together with specific ways of working, your painting becomes authentic, unique and personally meaningful.

The Weekly Sessions:

Week 1: A New and Ancient Context for Painting/Painting as Inner Engagement, Part 1.  We’ll start with a slide presentation looking at the history of handmade images, expanding our understanding of painting beyond the current art world into a larger sense of human purpose and engagement. Topics that are covered:

• Empowering Our Individual Painting Practice
• Accessing Deep Life-Force In/Through Our Work
• Painting as a Life Practice

We will also begin exploring Drawing as a Mindfulness Practice and how Mark-Making can Bring Us Fully into the Present Moment.

• Exercise 1: Blind Contour Drawing: looking at a simple still life, using graphite or charcoal on paper.
• Exercise 2: Marking as a Notation of Seeing: looking at the room, using graphite or charcoal on paper.
• Exercise 3: Measuring Proportion and Geometry as a Mindfulness Practice, looking at a simple still life, using graphite.

Week 2: Painting as Inner Engagement, Part 2. We explore Painting as a Mindfulness Practice: How Color Mixing and Touch can Bring Us Fully into the Present Moment.

• Exercise 1: Color Relationships as a Mindfulness Practice, looking at a simple still life, using a limited palette to mix tone.
• Exercise 1: Touch and Marking as a Mindfulness Practice, looking at a simple still life.

Week 3: Painting as Creative Empowerment, Part 1.   Often emotions like anxiety, frustration or self-doubt keep us from our painting.   How can we reorient our relationship with difficult emotions in a way that empowers our work?  We will explore emotional energy as a catalyst for marking and making.

• Exercise 1: Marking with Anxiety/Doubt: looking at a simple still life, using graphite or charcoal on paper.
• Exercise 2: Marking with Frustration/Anger: working non-representationally, using graphite or charcoal on paper.

Week 4: Painting as Creative Empowerment, Part 2.   Continuing from Part 1, we’ll now explore using paint.

• Exercise 1: Marking with Anxiety/Doubt: looking at a simple still life, using paint on canvas.
• Exercise 2: Marking with Frustration/Anger: working from observation or non-representationally, using paint on canvas.

Week 5: Composition as an Awareness Practice, Part 1.  We’ll start with a slide presentation looking at Composition as a Creative Discipline.  Followed by a Live Demonstration and discussion of these topics:

• Being Sensitive to the Whole Rectangle – The Secret of Peripheral Vision
• Compositional Basics – Visual Wholeness and Getting Un-Stuck
• How to Receive the Painting

Week 6: Composition as an Awareness Practice, Part 2.  Continuing from Part 1. We’ll also discuss how to bring this into your painting practice after the course ends.

• The Importance of Our Torso
• Studio Logistics – Good Light, a Neutral Wall, and Stepping-back Space
• The Role of Intuition and the Meaning of Waiting

Course Includes:

• 6 Weekly 2.5-hour Live Zoom Sessions, with Online Sharing through Padlet.
• Step-by-Step Demonstrations with Ongoing Q&A
• Recordings of All the Zoom Sessions Available for Repeated Viewing
• An Online Dedicated Course Room through Mighty Networks for Sharing and Community Support
• Weekly Feedback of Student Postings in the Online Course Room

This course is an Introduction to the 8-month Training, “PAINTING, POWER & PRESENCE”, beginning September 2026.

Additional Benefits Included:

• Free PDF of the Slide Presentation for “Establishing a Reliable Painting Practice”
• $100 Discount on Tuition for the Full 8-Month Training “PAINTING, POWER & PRESENCE”
• Free Copy of the book “PAINTING & CONSCIOUSNESS”

Student Testimonials:

“Jordan’s teaching is a very heartfelt style of allowing me a way of looking deeper, digging into the unknown to find something richer, more joyful, and more meaningful in the question of why I continue to paint. I came away with many pearls to think over and revisit about my experience. One is feeling into the seeing.” – Michelle Jerome

“I was seeking a deeper understanding of what it means to paint, as well as guidance on how to find my personal ‘voice’ and strengthen my studio practice.  I could not have found a better teacher for this stage of my development.  Jordan’s classes have taught me the importance of deep engagement with my subject and how to achieve that engagement.  He has shown me how to become aware of and deploy the specific energies and impulses I bring to the studio each day, how to assess my work at each step toward completion, and how to approach my work with exploratory rigor that does not lapse into counterproductive laboriousness.  Jordan’s discussions are full of insight; his demos are outstanding; his critiques are honest, constructive and extremely helpful in sorting out a painting.  All of this has brought greater clarity, confidence and joy to my painting practice.” – Leslie Blackmon

To register please click on the “+” sign below.