About Teaching | Workshop Links | Teaching Experience
Classes: [ Pop Art Rose | Landscapes of Mind | The Opulent Goddess | Painterly Portrait Books | The Obsessive Paintbrush ]

Painterly-Portrait-Books

You will transform a book into an intense visual journal of personality and autobiography with the use of collage and paint. You will get inspired by a wide range of artistic techniques with painting demonstrations through out the day in a positive atmosphere with intuitive painting assistance. Learn how to unify collage and various methods of her style developed over 25 years.

This is a lively day of creating and absorbing methods to achieve Annies highly detailed ancient feel in your own work. Students will have their art passion awakened by the constant creative energy of the class, they will learn how to paint with coffee, wax, acrylics, and get the various painting surfaces of Anne Grgich’s richly painted books.


Per Day Fee (per student): on request
Kit/Materials/Travel/Lodging (teacher fee): on request
Min/Max # of Students: 4-10 1-2 days
Class Length: 6 hours per day (extra time if allowed)

Items to bring for Painterly Portrait Books:

  • One old book about 10 pages maximum, about 8 x 10"
  • enough collage to cover the pages you will paint in, you can glue every few pages together — gesso not necessary, if you select children’s heavy board books, you must sand the pages first
  • PVA or Glues that dry clear
  • Small, medium and fat brush or fitch fan brush
  • 5 small tubes of paints
  • a water cup
  • paper towels
  • good pair of light weight scissors
  • Sharpie or a permanent marker

Supplies Provided by Teacher:

Beeswax and iron, acrylic non-toxic asphaltum tar, gold leaf, tar gel, heat guns, freeze dried instant coffee, golden tar gel, kids school glue. Different surprise collage elements are offered in each class.

Anne Grgich is one of the most original and innovative of the group of American artists known as Outsiders. Completely self-taught, and on the cover story of Raw Vision Magazine (#22), she became known for her one-of-a-kind books filled with page after page of impassioned, expressionistic faces and figures. Grgich often employs collage and vigorously applies layer after layer of over-painting, covering found texts and images, yet allowing some of the underneath to remain visible. This layering suggests generations of mystery and mystique to her exotic characters."

— Phil Demise-Smith, Gallery A Studio