- 2026
- JUL
- 7 & 8
- 10AM-4PM
The Bigger Picture Loosening Up
Lisa Daria Kennedy
Let’s paint the bigger picture. This two-day workshop combines demos, in-class assignments and individual instruction to teach students the techniques to create fresh, deliberate marks on a big canvas. Using observational painting as our launching point (we’ll start with/observational but deviate from it), we’ll embark each day with energetic painting exercises designed to tap into each participant’s personal voice.
The practice of working direct from life results in a heightened awareness and a lasting impression of the moment. Incorporating other elements, from photos, etc., we’ll creates an interconnectivity with our immediate surroundings and our personal voice. We’ll paint freer and bolder and let our personalities inspire what we see.. Through painting and exercises we’ll analyze what influences our choices and how to incorporate our personal voice in our work. All demos are in acrylic (oil painters welcome too!).
- LOCATION: Portsmouth Arts Guild
- TUITON: $285
- MEMBER DISCOUNT: Use code PAGMEM for $40 OFF
Lisa Daria Kennedy
Lisa Daria Kennedy has been making one small painting every single day for the last 6,000 days.
After fifteen years, she has no intention of stopping. Having cancer as a young adult, she discovered living is not just surviving. Young and faced with an existential crisis, she was acutely aware of all the time she’d wasted and the things she put off – like painting. In a moment of clarity she pared the creative process down to this one idea – show up for the job. She started showing up for her new job in 2009 and without excuse wakes up every day at five and paints.
Alongside her daily painting, she’s expanded her work and when her daily painting is completed, she works on larger, narrative paintings in varying styles and content and is vested in the topic of graphic medicine—the intersection of healthcare and comics—and art as a daily human practice.
She grew up along the northeast edge of the Hockomock Swamp in Massachusetts. She received her BA from Roger Williams University in Graphic Design, a BFA in Illustration and an MFA in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston where she’s also an Associate Professor and Chair. She lives 9 nautical miles from Boston in World’s End in an old fishing camp with her Wheaten Terrier, Olive. When she’s not painting, she’s paddling.
Registration
This workshop runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 7 & 8, from 10:00am to 4pm.
PAG Members use discount code PAGMEM to receive the member discount. Enter the code on the 2nd screen. Remember to click the APPLY button on the right.