Upcoming Workshops with R&F Instructors
R&F’s Core Artist Instructors are offering a range of different workshops featuring encaustic, Pigment Sticks®, and Drawing Oils™ in coming months. Below we’ve highlighted a featured workshop from each of our R&F affiliated instructors. You can learn more about these instructors at rfpaints.com. If none of these workshops are close to you, download our Teaching Artist list to find someone in your region.
Unable to attend a workshop? You can access a range of tutorials on R&F’s YouTube channel or visit Articles & Links where you will find an index to blog posts on popular subjects ranging from how to store Pigment Sticks® to encaustic color mixing.
Enjoy. Keep painting.
September 8 - 9: Making Your Mark In Encaustic with Megan MacDonald, Canadian Encaustic Conference, Owen Sound, Ontario Canada
The drawn line is the structure upon which a painting is built. A line can be bold, expressive, graphic, or delicate - the list is long. Through mark making, we will experiment with various methods of drawing in, under, and on the wax surface. We will develop ways to continuously pull lines visually up through encaustic paintings, while exploring a variety of arts media to make marks and draw.
September 27 - 28: Visual Pathways: Navigating Contrast in Encaustic Painting
with Isabelle Gaborit, Connemara, Ireland
Drawing inspiration from the breathtaking landscape of the west coast of Ireland by mimicking the forces that shape landscapes — erosion, deposition, and weathering. Participants will learn to build up, scrape back, heat, cool, score, and layer wax. These physical processes, inspired by the natural world, will reveal records and traces, creating highly tactile surfaces that hold a history of their own. Explore shape, line, value, edges, saturation, temperature, and texture as you create depth, dimension, and balance.
October 8 - November 12: Storied Layers: Exploring Mixed Media Encaustic Collage with Lorraine Glessner, Live Virtual Class
By journaling and mark-making, participants delve into personal histories, stories, and myth as inspiration for the creation of unique collage papers. Learn how to skillfully embed your created and found papers, images, patterns, botanicals, and textured materials in encaustic. Additional techniques include pyrography, mono-printing, working with horse-hair, transfer films, image transfer, and stencils.
October 23 - 26: Silkscreen Onto Encaustic with Jeff Hirst, Hirst Studio, Chicago, IL
This workshop covers the unique process of screenprinting Pigment Sticks®, tinted gesso, and screenprinting inks below and onto encaustic surfaces. A simplified approach towards screenprinting makes this process easy to grasp and unites graphic print elements with painting surfaces and motifs. The class will focus on creating images that incorporate multiple printing passes from both fixed screenprinting stations to freeform printing approaches.
November 8 - 9: Going Deeper with Encaustic Paint: Part 1 with Joanna Kidney, The Studio, Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
Existing painting and color skills will be developed with an emphasis on building history, creating optical depth and visual complexity through the use of layering, translucency and opacity, mark making, and scraping. Honing visual language, color exploration, composition, and the technical challenges of working larger will be addressed throughout. Exercises, prompts, and experiments will help to access the ‘open mode’ and nurture a playful and intuitive use of techniques and tools. Part 1 of a two part class. The second session will be held January 24 - 25, 2026.
November 8 - 9: Encaustic Sculpture with Kelly Austin-Rolo, Art Student League Denver, Denver, Colorado
Discover the expressive potential of encaustic in three dimensions. Explore sculptural form using cardboard as the primary armature, layered with encaustic and an array of mixed media techniques. This workshop will cover basic encaustic application, surface manipulation, and how to build depth, texture, and structure using both traditional and unconventional materials.
November 15: Exploring Encaustic Painting: An Abstract Approach with Denise Richards, Flowing Lake Studio, Snohomish, WA
Learn the essential techniques of working with encaustic medium. Denise will cover everything from preparing your surface and safely melting the wax to applying layers, fusing with a heat gun, and incorporating a variety of textures and marks. Students will experiment with creating a smooth surface, working with pigmented colors, scratching into the surface (sgraffito), and building up translucent layers to create a piece with a rich history.
November 15 - 16: Everything Encaustic with Shelley Jean, Island Art Association, Fernandina Beach, FL
In this comprehensive workshop students will explore a variety of techniques such as incising, layering, working with Pigment Sticks®, mark-making, mixed media collage, mono-printing, and incorporating photos. Participants will learn about encaustic history, safety, surfaces, and fusing. Designed for beginners and returning students, Shelley will help you take your encaustic painting to a new level.
November 15 - 16: Introduction to Encaustic and Collage with Leslie Giuliani, Woodstock School Art, Woodstock, NY
In this workshop artists will be introduced to painting and collage using encaustic. Learn how to create complexly-layered artwork using encaustic, fabric, photos, and your own drawings along with encaustic paint, laser copy transfers, and direct drawing. Explore how versatile this quick-curing, re-workable medium can work for you in your artistic practice.
January 5 - 11, 2026: Encaustic + Cold Wax Immersion Retreat with Jodi Reeb, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
This retreat will focus on R&F Pigment Sticks® and encaustic painting. Jodi will highlight techniques to create texture and working with mixed-media photo collage. There will be time to nurture the whole self, to slow down and soak in this colorful environment with all of your senses. This retreat is appropriate for both representational and abstract artists, from moderate to advanced, and at any stage of your studio practice.
January 16 - 17: Getting Comfortable With Color with Julie Snidle, Forstall Art Supply, Birmingham, AL
Perfect for those who want to feel more confident when choosing and mixing colors. Students will use R&F Pigment Sticks® and palette knives to learn about color through guided exercises and self-discovery. Julie will demonstrate how you can create dozens of colors from only three parent colors and white, as well as how to mix the color you want instead of colors you don't. Although we'll be using oil paint in class, the skills you learn are applicable to acrylics, watercolor, gouache, encaustic, and more.
January 16–18: Midwinter Creative Immersion: Renewal Through Painting & Process for the New Year with Kelly Williams, Kelly Williams Art Studio, Portland, Oregon
This three-day midwinter creative immersion blends strong technical instruction with personal meaning, seasonal reflection, and material exploration. Students will work with encaustic layering, fusing, carving, asemic writing, mark-making, and mixed media collage using materials rich in symbolism and story: burnt paper, ash, and pigment. Each painting becomes an artifact holding what you’ve released, transformed, and created. Prepare to drop down, find your voice, and carry your power into the new year.
January 21 - 25: Encaustic Color Intensive with Dietlind Vander Schaaf and Kelly Milukas, Kelly Milukas Studio, Tiverton, RI
In this five day immersive workshop Kelly and Dietlind will take you on a deep dive into color and the role it plays in composition. Appropriate for both representational and abstract artists, this intensive workshop will focus on value, selecting a palette, color mixing, chromatic and achromatic color, color relationships, how to improve your paintings by tackling color issues related to composition, as well as working with opaque and transparent colors. Students will learn to see light as shape and color that informs composition.
January 29 - February 1: Process + Play: Patterns, Possibilities + Personal Language with Lisa Pressman, PaintSpace NOLA, New Orleans, LA
An immersive workshop that invites artists to engage deeply with material, intuition, and experimentation as a way to trace personal meaning in their work. Through fast-paced prompts, varied media, and a focus on quantity over perfection, participants will create dozens of small works that reveal surprising patterns, connections, and visual language. You'll receive cues, demos, and conceptual directives rooted in formal elements like line, shape, and color designed to push you out of your comfort zone and into a state of discovery. Rather than aiming for polished results, this workshop emphasizes process and play as pathways to unexpected insight.
