Learn to paint expressive, impressionistic acrylic paintings that capture the colour, light and essence of a scene. Stretch your creativity and get out of your comfort zone to push past what you see, to what you’d like to express.

Make value and negative pattern work for you to produce paintings that have strength and depth. Show the Artist’s hand with bold brush strokes, and “unexpected” colour choices to set the mood. Create movement and tell a story with strong composition and design.

Topics covered include canvas/board preparation, under painting, varnish techniques to make your work glow, and colour mixing with a touch of theory. Kiss local-colour goodbye. It’s time to turn up the chroma!

Students Should Bring: The following supply list is only my (Sharon’s) recommendation and not by any means is it mandatory. Any good art store in your area should have available just about everything on this list. 

• Supports: Canvas boards, stretched canvases, or birch panels. Not too big, a size you feel comfortable with to complete your painting within a day.
• Brushes: It is useful to have both some soft watercolour type and stiffer acrylic type brushes. I generally use a 1-inch flat acrylic brush for most of my laying in of colour. For initial sketching in I use a softer round #10 or #12 watercolour brush.
• Pigment Choices: I mostly paint with Golden High Flow acrylics. You can purchase these as a 10 colour kit from an art supply store, or individually in 1oz and 8oz sizes. Or, you can use Heavy Body Acrylic Paint, you will need a thinning medium if you are using this type of paint, see below. Suggested palette if you are bringing individual tubes: Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Titanium White, and Carbon Black. Feel free to bring other paint colours as well, if you have them.
• Mediums: Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid (Satin) – used for thinning paint and glazing. White Gesso.
• Other Stuff: Floor or table easel (the School has floor easels you can use if you like), water bucket, paper towels, palette or “stay wet palette” and a painting knife, blow dryer. Drawing pencil, black marker or pen, sketchbook/notebook, tape.
• Photos: Please bring in some reference photos that inspire you. Your images, no magazine shots. Print out your photos, don’t rely on looking at your photos on your phone or tablet.

Bookings

Sharon Fox Cranston

Sharon Fox Cranston’s art captures more than landscapes—it tells a story shaped by her journey from the UK to Nova Scotia.

Her early professional years in graphic design gave way to her true calling as a full-time artist over the past eighteen years. Sharon’s work spans acrylics, oils, pastels, and gouache, with a focus on light, shadow, and mood in landscapes.

An award winning artist, Sharon’s is a member of the Society of Canadian Artists, Pastel Artists Canada and the Pastel Society of America. She also mentors artists online as a Master Artist with Mastrius.

Sharon’s creative process is both meticulous and intuitive, beginning with thumbnails and evolving through colour stories and layers—indicative of her commitment to exploring the interplay of light and shadow, texture, and emotion in her compositions. Her distinctive brushstrokes and mark-making instills her paintings with her signature style.

Sharon’s work resonates with collectors and audiences alike. Beyond painting, she enjoys videography, and writing, embracing storytelling across media. For Sharon Fox Cranston, art is an ongoing exploration—a means to interpret the world, foster community, and inspire connection. 

Bookings

Registrations for this workshop are now closed.