ADVANCING PRACTICE: AN ART MAKING TUTORIAL (Workshop is 12-weeks, and includes 6 bi-weekly group sessions, 2 individual sessions)

This workshop primarily focuses on building a visual art practice. We meet via Zoom biweekly over the course of twelve weeks. In addition to six group sessions, each participant is invited to meet twice with the instructor individually. The workshop is focused on building or advancing your art practice in the context of both pursuing individual goals and receiving group feedback. In addition the instructor will introduce the work of contemporary artists and identify resources that are requested. We will rotate between presentations of contemporary visual artists by the instructor (sessions 1,3 and 5) and reviewing work by participants (sessions 2, 4, and 6). The workshop is open to visual artists of all levels and each section is limited to no more that 8 participants. Fee: $400

Starting September 29th. Dates: 9/29, 10/13, 10/27, 11/10, 11/24, and 12/8

Section One: Tuesdays Noon – 2:30 PM ET As of 7/25 there are 2 spaces left in this workshop

Section Two: Tuesdays 6 PM – 8:30 PM ET As of 7/10 there are 5 spaces left in this workshop

REGISTRATION FOR ONLINE WORKSHOPS: Workshop fees are listed with the descriptions. You can register by either sending me a Venmo payment to @Peter-Hocking-artist (last four digits are 7248) or a check to Peter Hocking, PO Box 672, Truro MA 02666. Please note the workshop title/day of the week with your payment. Please email me — phocking@gmail.com — when you send your payment so I can put you on the registration list. Once you’ve registered, I’ll send a confirmation email. A few days prior to the workshop, I’ll send a Zoom link and workshop resources. Email me with questions — phocking@gmail.com.

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Painting Life/Painting Your Life in 9 Months
September 8 to May 18, 2027 offered via Fine Arts Work Center Online

There are 10 openings for this 9 month workshop.REGISTRATION.

This  workshop will meet bi-weekly from 6pm-8:30pm (Eastern) beginning on Tuesday, September 8th in 2026 and ending on May 18th in 2027. This is a practice-based workshop, intended to help painters of all levels to develop, advance or renew a painting practice while building a significant body of work. It will ask the question, “what is a painting life?” while encouraging the development of bodies of work that reflect our everyday experience, relationships, and gestures. Participants will be encouraged to think of this process through a number of lenses, including exploring painting as a process of memoir, creating a documentary archive of the months we work together, and/or considering the relationship between our bodies/gestures and our paintings.

Painters with pre-existing projects are encouraged to bring those projects to the workshop. There will not be specific assignments, but there will be optional prompts. We will alternate between discussing our works in progress and the works of artists whose practice aligns with the themes that emerge from our work and conversations. Participants will be asked to develop a learning/working plan for the duration of the workshop. The instructor will be available to meet with participants one-to-one in the development of the learning plan.

While this workshop is open to painters of all experience levels, the curriculum is based on my twenty-years of experience working with graduate students in Goddard College’s MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts program. Our work together will be individualized to each participants’ level of experience and learning aspirations. And it will be super fun!

LIVE SUMMER 2026 Workshops

FINE ARTS WORK CENTER IN PROVINCETOWN

Five Ways Forward: Place, Weather, Pathways, Relationships & Space

July 5-10, 2026

Looking closely at the work of contemporary painters, we’ll explore the creation of pictures that utilize place, weather, pathways, relationships, and space as organizing principles for content and composition. The goal of this workshop is to explore one’s deep location (using landscape, interior, still life, portraiture, figurative work, or abstraction) and to create a small body of new artwork. The course is open to artists of all levels, working in any paint, collage, or drawing medium. The approach to the workshop will be a balance of daily group discussions and individual meetings with the instructor. We will look at the work of contemporary artists together, make paintings during studio time, and talk about the work we’re making in a final review. REGISTERThis workshop is FULL, but there is a waitlist

TRURO CENTER FOR THE ARTS

It Starts With a Feeling

July 27 - 31

Richard Diebenkorn once said that every painting starts with a feeling. In my view feeling comes from the totality of our experience of a place or thing, including from observation, fieldwork research, memory and a full range of sensory experience. Direct, spontaneous picture making (painting, drawing, photography) allows a painter to capture something ephemeral and unexpected, and slower work in the studio – often developed from reference material --provides space for considered composition. Workshop participants are invited to work plein air, with still life, self-portraiture, landscape, or abstraction with the goal of discovering ineffable qualities in their paintings. Participants are encouraged to bring source material of interest to them and can also undertake plein air work near the campus. The workshop is designed for learners of all levels who are interested in painting media or multimedia approaches. In addition to making paintings in our studio time, we will look at the work of contemporary painters and talk about our work in a meaningful way. More than anything, this workshop is designed to get you motivated to paint -- and to have fun doing it! REGISTER

PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING & LEARNING

Learning to paint should be joyous, exciting and just a bit challenging! I spent twenty years working with graduate students in Master of Fine Arts programs at Goddard College and Rhode Island School of Design, and I approach my workshops with the same seriousness I had as a professor. While my workshops are intended to provide graduate-level content, they are designed for artists at all levels of experience. I try very hard to provide individualized learning to everyone who works with me. 

I believe growing as a painter involves three things: 1) making paintings (learning by doing); 2) looking at painting (learning from others); and 3) talking about painting (sharing ideas, resources, and technique). As a result my workshops become vital learning communities, in which all participants share and grow as artists.

I'm very flexible as an instructor and see workshops as a way to support our growth as painters and to immerse ourselves in the process of painting. I'm not product-focused, and always prefer that workshops fuel us for artmaking in the weeks and months after the workshop is over. I provide a lot of learning resources above and beyond what’s presented in the workshop.

I offer some prompts, but encourage participants to make their own 'assignments.' While we can discuss many things about painting as a group, I offer one-to-one meetings as a way to focus on each participant’s specific questions or concerns.