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Watercolor Adventures

with Hilary Doyle

Next session: August 8th to 11th, 2025

$500 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

In this exciting workshop students will learn techniques in watercolor, drawing and collage as they draw inspiration from the beautiful Catskill Mountains landscape. Still life rendering within natural spaces (weather permitting) will be explored so that detailing is learned. There will lots of individual attention so that each artist can apply what they’ve learned to their own unique approach. Subjects include observation of the landscape, still life and figure. Subject matter and projects are flexible and open to each artist’s unique interests and needs. Techniques taught in class will include Plein Air Painting, Watercolor Collage, Wet-in-Wet methods, Masking, Texture making and Layering to create a range of painterly abstract and realistic effects in watercolor on paper. All abilities are welcome.

Hilary Doyle is an artist from Worcester, Massachusetts. Recent solo shows include “Probably a Goddess” at Dinner Gallery in New York City, and “On The Way to the Garden” at Taymour Grahne in London. She has exhibited at Mindy Solomon Gallery, Hesse Flatow, and Monya Rowe Gallery. Her most recent exhibition being a two-person show at Galerie LJ in Paris in 2024, Doyle has received press coverage in Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Bushwick Daily, and New American Paintings Blog. She has taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, and SUNY Purchase College. She co-founded NYC Crit Club. Doyle was recently co-director at Transmitter Gallery and curates shows independently. Doyle received a MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Currently, Doyle teaches at the College of the Holy Cross.

Course Fee: $400 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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Polymorphic Media Exploration: Cyanotype, Paint, Wood

with Annalise Neil

Next session: September 5th to 8th, 2025

$500 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

Incorporating diverse materials and mediums, this workshop encourages play, curiosity and boundary-pushing. Students will create cyanotypes using photographic negatives and specimens found in Nature and be taught how to modify their natural blue tones. The class will work with various papers and fabric and learn different mounting and finishing techniques. The integration of water-based paints and collage will be explored, as well as sculptural considerations for wood panels that can support the work. Simple wood-working techniques using manual and rotary tools will be introduced. Come join us while we learn and work with this beautiful process in the fabled Catskill Mountains!

Annalise Neil lives and works in La Mesa, California. With a BFA in Printmaking from the College of Saint Rose, and a minor in Art History (summa cum laude), she has completed residencies at Playa Summer Lake in Oregon, with Mira Schor through the New York City Crit Club, and an artist residency in Motherhood. Her work has been exhibited nationally at galleries and museums including Field Projects, NYC, The Irvine Fine Arts Center, and The Oceanside Museum of Art. Neil’s work has been featured in publications such as ArtMaze Mag, Colossal, The On Being Project, Emergence Magazine, All She Makes, Resurgence, Ecologist Magazine, and New Visionary Magazine. Her work resides in public and private collections across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Course Fee: $400 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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The Art of Tying Flies

with Judd Weisberg

Next session: June 21st, 2025

$200 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

In this introductory workshop, you'll learn the essential techniques for tying classic trout flies, from the alluring wet patterns that mimic aquatic insects to the vibrant streamers that tempt larger fish. Whether you're a seasoned angler or a curious beginner, this hands-on experience will equip you with the skills to create effective and beautiful lures. Under expert guidance, you'll master the art of tying the Black & Olive Woolly Bugger, a versatile wet fly; the Black-Nosed Dace, a classic dry fly that imitates a small minnow; the Hendrickson, a dry fly designed for mayfly hatches; and assorted nymphs, essential for imitating underwater prey.

Since childhood, fly fisherman Judd Weisberg has been casting lines on the Schoharie Creek and far off destinations such as Montana, Wyoming, and Japan. Each fall, a tradition born in 1966 beckons him back to the vibrant currents of Moosehead Lake. Judd’s creativity flows beyond the riverscape. As an artist, Judd works in various media, exploring the essence of Nature. He recently collaborated with noted pianist, Yi-heng Yang, who teaches at Julliard, creating the "Woven Currents" series. Their collaboration was Inspired by the Schoharie's junction pools.

Course Fee: $100 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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Weekly Weaving

with Margot Becker

Next session: May 14th to June 18th, 2025

$240 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

This six-week weaving course begins with an introduction to floor loom mechanics and the creation of a sampler to explore weaving fundamentals. The second half focuses on individual projects, where students design and weave their own textile piece with instructor support. Through hands-on experience, students will learn how tension, sett, pattern drafting, threading, and treadling interact to create textiles. All skill levels are welcome, with instruction tailored to beginners and independent work for experienced weavers.

Course Fee: $150 + $50 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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In the Garden: Outdoor Painting

with Daniel Lloyd-Miller

Next session: July 6th to 7th, 2025

$290 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

This workshop will cover everything you want to know about painting outdoors, and more! This two day workshop will bring participants outside with their paint of choice, geared up, and ready to work. We'll cover finding subjects, tracking light, and all the considerations you need to keep in mind when bringing your studio outside. This popular workshop is a unique opportunity to learn ways of delving more deeply into the complexities of garden and nature to create vibrant memories of summertime once the December snows arrive.

Daniel Lloyd-Miller is a painter concerned with place and working from observation. He carefully chooses places to paint in order to harmonize with and better understand them. This act of delving into and absorbing a special place promotes an intensity of experience. He's currently exploring motifs of ‘visibility’ in addition to acute life-paintings of people on the train and other vignettes. Originally from Vermont, Daniel received his BFA degree from Mass Art, and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has worked in Japan and France and has exhibited in multiple solo and group shows. Currently, Lloyd-Miller teaches painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Course Fee: $200 + $50 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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The Taming of Wild Clay: A Glaze & Clay Science Primer

with Dr. William M. Carty

Next session: July 11th to 15th, 2025

$645 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

The use of locally sourced, or “Wild Clays,” is hugely popular. Unlike commercially produced clays, wild clays can be highly variable and often possess properties that are uncommon, offering significant challenges to the production of studio art. This workshop will systematically demonstrate, step by step, how to characterize and incorporate wild clay into processes that can be duplicated in the studio. This workshop will address the unique properties of wild clay, blending with other raw materials to improve behavior, addressing problems, and frank discussions regarding whether the clay is worth trying to tame. For the first time in a workshop, students will be invited to bring samples of wild clay and have them scientifically analyzed so their local clay can be integrated into a Unity Formula. How exciting is THAT?! Don’t worry if you can’t find clay. This workshop has you covered. Come join us in the Catskills at the eastern terminus of the Ceramics Corridor!

Dr. William Carty retired in 2020 from Alfred University after 27 years as a Ceramic Engineering professor focusing on ceramic processing, traditional ceramics, clay bodies and glazes. He is now a consultant to the ceramic industry, lives in New Hampshire, and still teaches “Ceramic Science for the Artist” in the summer. He is a world-recognized ceramic expert and conducts research and advises graduate students at Alfred University. Dr. Carty is noted for his exceptional, and much appreciated, work providing links between artists and materials science.

Course Fee: $500 + $105 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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Dimensional Felting Intensive

with Renee Baumann

Next session: July 18th to 20th, 2025

$380 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

Learn to transform lusciously soft wool felt into three-dimensional forms. Over three days we will explore various contemporary techniques for creating three dimensional shapes, including wet felting on a resist as well as needle felting. While you might assume that your imagination is the limit, you will enjoy being in a supportive and experimental environment where anything is possible. You will create several small projects as well as at least one garment or vessel. This workshop is a first for Sugar Maples, and we are excited to host you and our incredibly talented Instructor for three days of discussions, demonstrations, and in-depth making of objects pertinent to you.

Renee Baumann is a Catskills-based designer, chef, and nature enthusiast with a passion for wild plants and fungi. Trained as an architect and a chef, she brings a creative, interdisciplinary flair to everything she does—whether she’s crafting baskets from local plants, illustrating mushrooms in watercolor, or whipping up delicious meals from foraged ingredients. Renee teaches workshops and techniques working with local fibers, with an emphasis on creating three dimensional forms from bioregional components. Her work varies from traditional basketry to sculptural felt and spinning foraged fibers. Renee teaches workshops on identifying, cooking with, and even weaving with plants and fungi growing in the Catskills.

Course Fee: $300 + $40 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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Growing Patterns: Design Your Future

with Yael Braha

Next session: August 1st to 5th, 2025

$630 More Info

Beginner – Advanced

Handbuilding exquisite pottery forms is as ancient as the Craft is. This workshop is perfect for students who want to take handbuilding and creating dynamic surface decoration to a new level. Come study with this rising star of ceramics who will lead you through wonderful construction techniques that celebrate minimalist form thereby providing perfect planes for bold surface decoration using digital and analog approaches to pattern-making. Explore the power of line, negative space, contrast, and tension and their relationship to the forms you make. Analog and digital pattern design will be introduced, as well as embossing as an under-overlying detail. It’s complex and that’s exactly where we want to be. There will be demonstrations, discussions, hands-on work in our beautiful studio, firing, and heaps of individual attention. You can apply this to wherever and whatever temperature you want to fire.

Yael Braha is an artist of North African descent who received her BA in Graphic Design and MFA in Cinema. She has been an artist-in-residence at Arrowmont, Watershed, Haystack, Starworks, and in Shigaraki, Japan. Yael’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and Japan and is in permanent collections in the United States. In 2021, Braha received the coveted Multicultural Fellowship Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.

Course Fee: $500 + $90 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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Gel Plate Printing & Collage

with Holly Hughes

Next session: June 20th to 22nd, 2025

$380 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

Gel plate printing, a user friendly, kitchen table compatible printmaking technique with NO need for a press is applicable to painters, printmakers, ceramic artists, journal keepers, etc. Once the basics of Gel Plate printing are learned, it lends itself to both home, studio and travel purposes with ease and practicality. Fun and open to experimentation and improvisation - this is a method where artists with any experience level can discover new motifs and approaches for their art practice - and make beautiful, finished prints. There will be many demos including an “invisible” collage technique where your vibrant colorful prints can become raw material for larger works on paper. We will use slow drying Golden’s Open Acrylics mostly printed onto mulberry paper.

Holly Hughes is an artist with her own shorthand, developed to describe both nature and the human-made visual world surrounding us. Hughes, Professor Emerita of Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), works in various mediums - always in conversation with one another. Processed by an imagination raised on Disney, the pictures exude both humor and inspiration from modern culture and the decorative arts. Codes for the idyllic and pastoral slam against a play of repossessed abstract language, with sources ranging from painting history through heraldry to domestic linens. Her practice ranges across painting, works on paper, printmaking, and ceramics. Hughes’ work can be found in many corporate, public, and private collections including Citibank, Pepsico, Prudential Bache, Pfizer Collection, Benziger Imagery Collection, Davis Museum, Dorsky Museum, and Museum of Rhode Island School of Design.

Course Fee: $300 + $40 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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A Constructivist Beauty’s Segmented Beauty

with Kyle Johns

Next session: August 22nd to 24th, 2025

$400 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner – Advanced

This workshop/demonstration will introduce students to an exciting way of building forms using mold making, slip casting, rearrangement of parts, and technical construction. The instructor will lead participants through various industrial techniques that are then utilized to create artistic responses and complex forms. The use of stains and colorants as additions to clays and slips will be covered through this 3-day long demonstration/workshop. This workshop will feature a collective approach to learning Johns’ vivid new ways of construing and building vessels and forms.

Kyle Johns was born and raised in Chicago. He received a BFA from Southern Illinois University and MFA from Ohio University. Johns has been an artist-in-residence at The International Ceramics Center in Kecskemet, Hungary, the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, and at Kansas State University. He was a Studio Assistant at Arrowmont School for Arts and Crafts and has participated in their Utilitarian Clay symposium. His innovative work has been featured in numerous magazines, national exhibitions, and he is currently an Instructor in Harvard’s Ceramics Program in Cambridge.

Course Fee: $300 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee