Natasha Isenhour PSA
Inspiration to Expression: Conveying Emotion Through Color, Value, and Design
Skill Level: All Levels (Experienced Beginner through Advanced)
Six Fridays: May 21, June 4, June 18, July 2, July 16, and July 30, 2027
Time: 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM ET
Format: Virtual (Zoom), discussion and critique-based class, no live demonstrations
Class Overview
When we learn to paint and develop our practice, we spend a lot of time finding better ways to portray our subjects. Whether working from photographs, from life, in the studio, or in the field, the key to a successful painting is learning how to convey the why of the subject. What made you stop to take that photo, or set up your gear in that particular spot? What qualities of the scene drew you in?
Connecting Eyes, Heart and Hand is Natasha’s teaching philosophy, the practice of keeping a painting fresh and true to your own unique vision. This class is built around developing that skill until it becomes the fingerprint that runs through everything you paint.
Through extensive discussion, guided examples, and group critique, Natasha will help students connect emotion and inspiration to subject matter first, then apply that connection to concrete choices in composition, value, and color temperature. Students will work from provided reference images early in the class, then move to their own images in later sessions as they build confidence in the process.
This is a discussion and critique-based class rather than a hands-on painting workshop. There are no live demonstrations. Students complete assigned exercises between sessions and return every two weeks to discuss and compare interpretations as a group.
What You Will Learn
- A framework for identifying the emotional why behind a subject, not just its visual likeness
- Practice translating personal response into compositional and value choices
- Direct group critique on a body of work completed across the class
- Exposure to how other students interpret the same reference material differently
- A repeatable process for self-critique to apply after the class ends
Who This Course is For
- Artists who feel technically capable but want their work to feel more personal and less formulaic
- Students who want to strengthen how they use composition, value, and color temperature to support emotional intent
- Artists who enjoy learning through group discussion and critique rather than direct demonstration
- Students ready to work independently between sessions and bring completed exercises back for review
Course Structure
Over six sessions, held two weeks apart so students have time to complete assigned work between meetings, students will explore:
Connecting Eyes, Heart and Hand: an introduction to Natasha’s core teaching philosophy through example paintings, including a first discussion of how photographs can mislead and how to look past them for the emotional truth of a subject
Composition as intention: examining how composition choices either support or work against the emotional intent behind a piece
Value as mood: exploring how value structure carries emotional weight, a principle Natasha considers foundational across every medium she teaches
Color temperature as voice: using color temperature as a tool for personal expression rather than literal representation, with students moving from provided reference images to their own
Recognizing your fingerprint: group critique focused on what is beginning to feel consistent and personal across each student’s recent work
Carrying it forward: a final discussion of how to keep applying this process independently after the class ends
Each session pairs guided discussion with group critique of exercises completed since the last meeting, so students build a working process for connecting emotion to craft rather than simply completing individual assignments.
Critique Component
Sessions 2 through 6 include group critique of exercises completed since the last meeting, with discussion focused on emotional intent alongside compositional and value choices.
Student Experience
This is a discussion and critique-based course, not a hands-on painting workshop, and includes no live demonstrations. Students should be comfortable working independently between sessions and sharing work for group discussion.
Q & A
What drew you to build a class around the idea of connecting eyes, heart, and hand, rather than around a specific technique or subject matter?
When I was four or five, I picked up a guitar and learned to play, very successfully, on my own. I have since realized that has been a metaphor for how I learn. I’m a problem solver and an intuitive, which has shaped everything about my career in art. I bought art supplies and taught myself to use them, avoiding workshops for fear of learning to paint like someone else. I realized my creativity in all its manifestations came from the experience of emotion and the desire to express it somehow, where it not only meant something to me, but where someone else could resonate and have their own experience through the art or music. I knew, as a scientist, that formula, for me, kills my intent in my art, so I had to unlearn that structure and boil it back down to the core of what I want my art to reflect. To do that, I had to learn to connect my eyes, heart, and hand without complicating it. So I teach how to be a first-rate version of you rather than a second-rate version of me.
You mentioned that one of the first things you discuss is how photographs can mislead. Can you say more about what that means and why it matters for painting from photo reference?
Photography in the digital age is designed to give an overly saturated, all-in-focus wow image. The truth of what you actually saw is lost in the pixels, where shadows go black, and lights are subdued to create what the code thinks you want in a photo. There are certainly general color issues as well, and old school photography has its own challenges. Yet rarely does the photo show the emotion that jarred you. I believe anyone can copy a photo. The challenge is how to infuse your painting with what the photo leaves out.
Since this class doesn’t include demonstrations, what role does group discussion and critique play in helping students grow? What have you seen happen in a class like this that wouldn’t happen in a typical demo-based workshop?
Demonstrations are great when it’s about showing you what I do. But when you are in my class to learn how to be a better painter in your own unique way, I don’t believe showing you what I do teaches you how to do anything but try to emulate me. The entire notion of this class is how to get what you see down in a way that expresses you. In the first part of each class, there will always be information about materials and techniques to share, followed by introducing concepts before opening discussion. We will look at each student’s expression of a subject and contrast the ways to reach what are often the same goals, but present uniquely in each artist’s fingerprint. Color, transitions, edges, and so much more come into play in addition to composition, value, and temperature. The information and learning to see are what create the growth at the easel from week to week.
What do you hope a student notices about their own work by the end of the six sessions?
My goal is that students begin to understand the why of their individual creative process, and how they can build on their own technique to level up their finished work. Understanding yourself as it manifests in your work is key.
Instructor Bio
Natasha Isenhour is a New Mexico-based painter working in oil and pastel, known for landscapes, architectural subjects, and still life that carry a quiet, unpopulated stillness. Her work reads as realistic from a distance, but a closer look reveals loose, confident mark-making underneath. A background in geology shapes how she sees and renders land forms, giving her landscapes a strong sense of underlying structure.
She spent well over a decade as an exclusively studio painter before taking her practice outdoors to study light firsthand, an experience she still returns to today through select plein air work and a handful of invitationals each year, and one that continues to inform the vibrant, dynamic work she creates in the studio from photographic reference. She has taught numerous workshops nationally, many of which sell out well in advance, and her teaching centers on helping each artist find and trust their own voice rather than following a formula.
Natasha is a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America.
Materials and Studio Setup
Reliable internet connection
Ability to send and receive jpeg images
A dedicated notebook
