Instructor: Mike Howat

Learn how to see and “capture” light and atmosphere in your paintings to make them feel luminous and spatial. Working from photo reference as well as scenes and still lives from your living space, the online six-week course will cover how to depict light and shadow, and explore ways to manipulate light to create different moods or atmospheres in your work. It will also cover atmospheric perspective, a technique where you can create “deep space” in a painting or manipulate what looks way off in the distance and what looks like it’s right in front of the viewer. This course will cover basic painting techniques, so all skill levels are welcome. This class will meet online via Zoom. 

Mike Howat is a New Hampshire-based painter and printmaker. His work explores themes of urbanization, Americana and collective memory. Since earning his B.F.A. from New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2014, he has been actively engaged in the growing New England art scene. He exhibits regularly with Kelley Stelling Contemporary and Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden, and has shown with Chase’s Garage, Rochester Museum of Fine Arts, Nahcotta, among others. He is the current artist-in-residence at Kimball Jenkins School of Art, where he teaches classes and workshops in painting, printmaking and drawing. Howat started dabbling with curating in 2018 with Figuratively Speaking (link), an exhibition of established and emerging abstract artists in the Northeast, and recently became a curatorial advisor for the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts. He has future plans for satellite gallery projects. When not in his studio, he’s likely wandering the coast or the White Mountains. mikehowat.com