Sorolla Master Copy Workshop

Course Outline

You will learn how to:

  • prepare your canvas
  • map out a drawing onto of a prepared canvas
  • assess warmer and cooler colour hues
  • apply impasto paint like a Master

The course fee is 249€.
Sign up by December 7, 2022, and receive 20% off the course fee and only pay 199€!
Participation is limited to four to eight people to allow for individualized feedback in each class.

The two paintings displayed on this page are examples of copies done by me based on Sorolla’s painting Walk on the Beach, 1909.

Course Schedule

The workshop consists of five weekly 2.5 hour sessions, starting at
16:00 CET/15:00 GMT/10am EST/7am PST.

2023 dates:

January 7: Intro to Artist & Preparing Canvas

January 14: Drawing 

January 21: Paint Outline and Shadows

January 28: Painting in Full Colour

February 4: Finishing in Full Colour

Supply List

The supply list will be provided by email to registered participants.

Studying Online

Since not everyone can leave their homes or jobs to study copy making, I am offering this workshop online to everyone who shares the passion for art making. While making a good copy already is a pleasurable experience, the aim of my classes is to learn the technique, to enable you to apply it to your own original paintings. My teaching style is an empathic understanding of how challenging it can be to learn new skills and an encouraging heart, holding hope that these classes can help improve painting for the diligent student. The focus in class is also sharing the joy of painting while teaching and learning.

About Joaquin Sorolla

Born in Valencia in 1863, Sorolla showed a natural aptitude for art and started art instruction by the age 9 in his hometown. At the age of 18, he went to further his studies at the Museum del Prado in Madrid, Spain.

While Sorolla is considered part of the Impressionist movement due to his painting of light, one of the main differences between Sorolla and the impressionists are his large bravura brush strokes, as impressionists generally painted with smaller brush strokes. His style is considered to fall under Luminism, specifically Valencian Luminism. What makes his paintings so unique is that they are decorated with beautiful large, thick brush strokes. The vibrancy and luminosity in his paintings showed that he was a master with his cool and warm colour contrasts.

A Brief History of Making Art Copies

Copies have been part of traditional art training which started as far back as the Romans copying Greek sculptures. This tradition continued on through the Middle Ages, where it was seen as both an honour and a learning tool, and the Renaissance. Even the famous impressionist artists like Claude Monet, who studied at the Académie Suisse, France (1858), Van Gogh at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (1880), and Sorolla at Museo del Prado, Madrid (1881), copied art work as part of their training. These artists are but a few of many thousands who undertook this type of art education during the latter part of the 1800s. Many artists who called themselves self taught learned by copying other artists’ work. The tradition died down around the world wars and has since become revived starting in Florence, Italy, in the 1990s.

Painting adds great joy, beauty and meaning to life.