Upcoming Atelier… Beginners Art Studio Weekend
Vanessa Rothe Beginners Workshop at Willow Pond SLO March 22nd and 23rd 2025
The Warmest of Welcomes to Art School
The best thing about practicing art is that you can begin at any age, and the right time is when you are ready. On March 22 & 23rd, we welcome the phenomenal Vanessa Rothe to Willow Pond.
This immersive weekend workshop will resemble an atelier art studio setting featuring classical fine art training for beginning and intermediate students such as still life with drawing in charcoal and painting in gouache, acrylic, or oil. Students will work in the medium of their choice and learn, review, and revisit those ever-important skills fundamental for artists. The highly supportive environment instructed by Rothe also includes 10 new friends, a gorgeous setting, and of course delicious lunch.
For intermediate artists this is also a very useful and fun class, reviewing and improving your skills then taking it to the next step with Vanessa’s one-on-one guidance. If you missed anything in your artist journey, you can learn and gain technical skills in a setting like this. Vanessa Rothe describes her own artist journey as multifaceted and much like a silk tapestry of her fascinating background. These combined influences have helped mold her style which is a mix of traditional realism mixed with painterly bold modern, and many of her current works are focused on fashion and interiors.
”My art education is from various sources. From graphic design and marketing classes and jobs that include Disney press, to fine art classical training in art school. From training my eye with visuals my whole life with international travel and living abroad…From growing up in an artist colony in Laguna Beach as the daughter to a fashion designer/antique dealer to the stars and my French heritage, especially my French grandfather François Ricaud.”
Rothe has a real gift for capturing the moment in her work, whether it’s the moment you experienced while seeing it or a feeling it left you with and she teaches her students how to bring this to the viewer on canvas. Knowing and applying the core fundamentals of art is essential for creating a successful work of art. Beginning the workshop with still-life items from basic shapes such as circles, squares, and cylinders then progressing to more complex items and adding details on newsprint.
“Next, we will learn about values, the subtle changes from darkness to lightness that help give things volume and look 3 dimensional. We will work with Gouache paint on paper and focus on value changes initially in black and white. We will end with basic color theory and mixing, learn about color harmony, and complimentary colors, and paint a few still-life items in color and give you the core fundamentals you need.”
About the Artist
Instructor, artist, editor/writer, curator, lecturer, and art dealer Vanessa Françoise Rothe was classically trained in fine art at Laguna College of Art and Design and has been a graphic designer, and professional working artist, exhibiting in top galleries and museums worldwide.
