Arts and Leisure   

In this 8-week course, we will continue to explore the wonderful medium of watercolor painting! Through warm-up exercises designed to refine your value studies, we will focus on composition planning before you start painting. This will help ensure you start with a successful design...and painting! Each class, we will work with a photograph that needs some compositional editing. By practicing thumbnail sketching and quick small value studies, we will pre-plan for larger and more successful colorful paintings. This course assumes that you have had some watercolor painting and drawing practice. You are encouraged to paint from your own reference photographs or set up a still life in front of you from which to paint. This course is taught entirely online through the Zoom platform. 

Retirement can open new space for creativity, reflection, and connection. In this five-session course, participants will create one artwork in each class while exploring themes such as music, memory, nature, relationships, and personal growth. Inspired by artists whose works are in Boston-area museum collections, the course offers a relaxed, welcoming space for creative expression. No prior art experience is needed. The emphasis is not on technical skill, but on enjoyment, self-expression, and meaningful conversation. 

This class welcomes a mix of new and experienced knitters. To accommodate new knitters, the class will offer two sessions of basic information and how to’s. Experienced knitters will be provided with patterns, or they can bring their own, in order to get started on their projects. All participants will also be introduced to Ravelry, a free knitters website. In the third session there will be a discussion on colors and how to use different stitches and yarn to create original garments. According to what is new in knitting, the trend is to use a palette of colors (the bigger the contrast, the better!) and using a combination of stitches, yarn types, and geometrical pictures in the overall design. The rest of the course will be used to troubleshoot and to discuss different techniques. 

Creative drama is an educational art form that incorporates theatre techniques and pedagogy, such as improvisation and role-play, drawing on participants’ experiences. It is structured through hands-on interactive activities. This course aims to introduce four branches of art in a fun and engaging manner. In the first week, we will get to know one another through icebreaker activities and build a positive group dynamic. Throughout the course, we will share our stories and learn the basics each week of (1) visual arts, (2) literary arts, (3) dance, and (4) musical theater. Anyone interested in exploring these art forms in an enjoyable way is welcome to join this weekly 90-minute workshop series. This course fosters a sense of belonging within a learning community, literacy across the four art branches, and reflection on personal experiences through art. 

Great news! There is no such thing as talent. Talent is actually skill developed by combining techniques and practice. If you’re a beginner, you’re only 60 drawings away from being good and 100 drawings away from being an expert. This introductory course is great fun because students will discover a new way of looking at shape, texture, source of light, and dimension as they uncover the optical illusions, the magic of drawing. Age or ability is not part of this learning process. How do I know this? Just watch kids stretched out at the kitchen table armed with a couple of #2 pencils, paper, and no one to disturb their concentration. You, my friends, will witness the birth of creative genius. Talent or thoughts of talent is never a consideration. Joy and enthusiasm and shared curiosity regarding each other’s masterpiece is what matters. Keys to drawing: Trust Your Eyes will rekindle the embers that have been smoldering for all these years. Are you ready to light the fire and regenerate the artist within? I know you are! 

This class is for anyone interested in learning how to draw from life and from reference photos using both pencil and colored pencil. Students will learn some color theory in order to understand layering techniques with their colored pencils. This course will focus on observational drawing in order to capture form and space using simple still life objects for inspiration. Additionally, students may choose to draw from their own reference photos or still life, particularly if they have had prior drawing experience. All levels are welcome. This course is taught entirely online through the Zoom platform. 

Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly charged compositions focused on works associated with classical antiquity (encompassed the culture of ancient Greece & Rome) and Christian history. Due to the enormity of his work, we will focus on his mature period after he returned to Antwerp in 1609, following his stay in Italy. Early on he served as a diplomat to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, and negotiating a peace treaty between England and Spain This period also included notable paintings such as “The Elevation of the Cross” and huge commissions like the Medici Cycle. Surprisingly, there came a sea change in his style due to his reencounter with the works of Titian in Madrid in 1628. After retiring  in the 1630s, he no longer worked on commission but rather for his own pleasure. He focused on landscapes and the life of peasants and portraits, characterized by a more relaxed, intimate technique.  

An engaging course that explores 30 artworks featured in Mona’s Eyes, blending literature, art history, storytelling, and the cultural legacy of the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, and Beaubourg (the Centre Pompidou). Participants will examine how art shapes the novel’s meaning and discover how masterpieces can be read as both image and story. 

Artists let us see the world through their eyes, transporting us through time and space. Throughout history, art has been used to record our daily lives, share our connections with people and our environment, and to visualize what we cannot see—such as the spiritual realm. Session topics will include: Andrew Wyeth’s expressive watercolors of the people and places that surrounded him in rural Pennsylvania and Maine in the special exhibition Spectacular Freedom: Andrew Wyeth and the Modern American Watercolor; how medieval Koreans envisioned the world beyond death in the special exhibition Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea; as well as various examples across the museum’s exhibitions and permanent collections.  

This class is for anyone interested in learning the wonderful medium of watercolor painting! At the beginning of each class, the instructor will present a specific technique or concept. Topics of exploration include value studies, color theory, still life, composition, and landscape painting. Students will have the choice of painting from reference photos (provided by the instructor) or from their own photographs or still life set-ups. Students with prior experience will have opportunities for additional challenges. Some prior experience is helpful, but students new to watercolor are always welcome. This course is taught entirely online through the Zoom platform. 

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, this class builds on students’ interest in art and history to explore important moments of Haitian history that intersect with American history.  A curated selection of artworks (by Haitian and non-Haitian artists) will be featured for active discussions.  At least one class will be hybrid, with students attending either online or onsite at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, to discuss a Haitian painting.  Classes are expected to be engaging and interactive, and students can also submit artworks relevant to the topic for interpretation. No formal background in art or Haitian history is required.