Woodward Contemporary

Our June 18-21 workshop with is built around one powerful idea: the hero’s journey, as popularized by Joseph Campbell.

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men." -Joseph Campbell

Using Will’s “Relentless” series as the foundation, you’ll explore how a painting can mirror the hero's journey. A beginning layer, moments of tension and uncertainty, pushing through chaos, and arriving somewhere more resolved. It’s about learning how to stay with a painting long enough to let it transform.

👉🏼 This workshop solves a few big problems a lot of artists run into:
✔️Starting strong but not knowing how to develop a painting
✔️Overworking or stopping too soon
✔️Playing it safe instead of taking risks
✔️Struggling to create depth, movement, and balance

You’ll learn how to build visual rhythm, how to create tension and release, and how to let light, shadow, and space work together instead of fighting each other.

And you won’t be doing it alone 👩🏼‍🎨

You’ll be in the room with Will, watching how he works, how he makes decisions, how he pushes a painting forward. And you’ll be surrounded by other artists who are in the exact same place, figuring it out, experimenting, and growing right alongside you.

If you’re coming from out of town (and even if you're not), it doubles as a full reset. Four days in San Diego, away from your usual routine, with lunch handled each day and nothing to focus on except your work.

Workshop: Relentless: The Alchemy of Emotions and Forms
Instructor: Will Day
Dates: June 18-21, 2026
Time: 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Tuition: $1750
Included: Complimentary lunch provided in studio daily

Comment WORKSHOP for booking.

This workshop is all about freedom, intuition, and the thrill of watching a portrait shift before your eyes. Come explore emotion in its purest form!

Workshop: Face Up
Instructor: Cathrine Edlinger-Kunze
Dates: July 23-26, 2026
Days: 4
Time: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Level: All
Tuition: $1600
Lunch: Complimentary lunch provided in studio daily.

Face Up welcomes beginners and experienced artists alike to experiment, play, and push boundaries. Using acrylics and then oils, we’ll build expressive abstract layers, coaxing a face out of the chaos—only to let it melt back into abstraction in the most surprising and emotional way.

Join and journey into the expressive realm between portrait and abstraction. All levels are welcome as we paint on canvas or board, beginning with bold acrylic strokes that unlock instinct and loosen the hand. From these abstract beginnings, a face slowly rises—full of energy, vulnerability, and emotion.

Then comes the transformation: as we shift into oils, the portrait bends, blurs, and dissolves once more, returning to a different state of abstraction with a new intensity.

A cycle of emergence and release 💫

Discover how emotion can be shaped by form..and freed by letting go of it! 🙌🏼

Reviews From Last Year's Workshop

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"An excellent workshop for realistic artists that want to loosen their technique." - Nancy Levinson

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"WOW. Catherine offers the students a new path to exciting and prerogative art work " -Carol Prior

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Catherine was a very pleasant, generous and giving workshop artist. She was ready to help at any moment." -Vivien Ressler

Register at woodwardcontemporary.com.

Workshop: Be Wild for a While!
Dates: September 17-20, 2026
Instructor: Manuela Karin Knaut
Level: All
Tuition: $1750
Included: Complimentary lunch provided in studio daily

This four-day workshop is a celebration of freedom in painting — an open space to experiment, take risks, and rediscover the joy of creation. Participants are invited to explore abstract painting through movement, intuition, and curiosity, using color, gesture, and texture as starting points for new discoveries.

We will question familiar routines, embrace coincidence, and follow the unexpected paths that materials and process reveal.

Each participant will work toward developing a personal visual rhythm and direction — ideally leaving the workshop with a selection of exhibition-ready works and a renewed sense of confidence, inspiration, and creative energy.

The studio will become a space of openness and exchange rather than demonstration — a protected environment that encourages authentic experimentation and dialogue.

This workshop is particularly suited for those wishing to reconnect with painting after a break or to refresh and expand their creative practice.

Through intuitive exercises and playful yet focused experimentation, we will move between control and freedom, structure and openness — exploring what happens when intuition and material take the lead. It’s about stepping into a space of new artistic possibilities, discovering fresh perspectives, and gaining trust in your own visual language.

⭐ Only 5 Spots Left ⭐

Comment WORKSHOP for booking.

I swear we're not making all this good news up 🤩

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Woodward Contemporary is a step above the rest. From the minute you walk into the gallery space you are greeted with a warm welcome. The staff and all the artists of this community are next level. Workshops consist of amazing teachers, eager students, coffee, pastries, lunch and a little wine to finish the day. Woodward Contemporary is a class act...check them out!"
-

Read this twice ⬇️⬇️

"That was hands down the best art workshop or class I've ever taken! 🙌🏽"
-Michele J.

Learn the part of portrait painting that nobody talks about.

We’re excited to welcome Cathrine Edlinger-Kunze back to our studio!

July 23-26, 2026
Face Up: Where Faces Emerge and Disappear
Woodward Contemporary, San Diego, CA

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"It was truly like watching a master create a painting. She was quite free with information, color combinations, brushwork, drawing tips. It was awesome!"
-Nelvia

During this 4-day workshop, you don’t start with control or a finished plan. You start loose, in abstraction, and you let the painting lead. It can feel a little uncertain at first, even uncomfortable, because you are not trying to “get it right” right away.

But then something shifts...

A face starts to appear where there was only paint and gesture. It feels surprising every time. Like you are discovering something instead of inventing it.

☝🏽 That moment is the heart of the workshop. Not pushing the image, but noticing when it begins to show itself. Staying with it long enough to see what it wants to become.

It can feel quiet, focused, and honestly a bit emotional when the image comes forward on its own.

Comment WORKSHOP for booking.

Ready for an artistic jailbreak? 💥

This July, internationally recognized artist invites you into four days that feel far less like a workshop and more like an artistic jailbreak.

Known for her expressive, emotionally charged work and sought after by collectors worldwide, Cathrine has built an international following by doing something many artists secretly crave and few dare to attempt ⬇️⬇️

Loosening the rules and trusting what happens next.

No measuring noses, no obsessing over whether one eye is 2 millimeters too high.

Instead, you'll begin where many of the BEST paintings begin:

Loose marks
Unexpected textures
Excavated layers
Beautiful chaos

👉🏼If you are an abstract artist who wants more humanity and emotional resonance in your work, this workshop is for you.

👉🏼If you are a figure painter who craves freedom, movement, and fresh energy, this workshop is also for you.

Face Up: Where Faces Emerge and Disappear
Cathrine Edlinger-Kunze
July 23-26, 2026
$1600
Includes all lunches and beverages
Open to all levels, from beginner to advanced

Comment WORKSHOP for the link or tap the link in our bio.