Armory Art Center

Join artist and professor Jason John for an immersive, hands-on workshop exploring the complete figurative painting process—from developing compelling compositions to applying luminous layers of paint. Blending classical techniques with contemporary sensibilities, Jason shares his approach through demonstrations, guided exercises, and individualized feedback.

Participants will explore how form, color, and visual narrative can communicate identity while strengthening their technical skills and understanding of the human figure. Ideal for artists seeking to transform reference material into expressive, personal paintings.

WORKSHOP
November 13th 6 – 9 pm
November 14th, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
$525 Workshop includes lecture

Join artist and professor Jason John for an introduction to his distinctive portrait paintings and a live painting demonstration. A Professor at the University of North Florida, Jason has exhibited internationally in more than 100 exhibitions over the past decade. His figurative work explores the shifting nature of identity through context, memory, and perception, combining dreamlike environments, fragmented landscapes, and Old Master influences.

LECTURE
November 13th 5-6 pm
$25 Lecture only

Jason John is a figurative painter and Professor at the University of North Florida. Born in Detroit and raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania, he earned a BFA in Painting from Kutztown University and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, with additional study at The Waichulis Studio.

His work has been exhibited internationally in more than 100 exhibitions over the past decade and featured in numerous leading art publications. His honors include First Prize in the 2024 Alexandria Museum of Art Annual Juried Competition. Jason has presented recent solo exhibitions at the Macon Art Alliance, LeMoyne Arts Center, and Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts. He is currently represented by 33 Contemporary Gallery and Florida Mining Gallery in Miami.

Contemporary figurative painter Michele Del Campo invites artists to explore how paintings can communicate powerful stories without relying on explicit narratives. Drawing inspiration from old master paintings, cinema, photography, travel, and everyday observation, participants will learn to compose tableaux that capture fleeting moments suspended between past and future.

Through demonstrations and guided studio practice, Michele will discuss how composition, light, gesture, spatial relationships, and carefully edited visual information create emotional resonance and narrative tension. Students will work from photographic references and construct a composite image, transforming ordinary observations into evocative reference images that leave room for mystery and interpretation and will manifest in a final drawing.

Ideal for intermediate and advanced painters, this master workshop emphasises not only technical excellence but also the development of a personal visual language capable of expressing the complexity of contemporary life.

WORKSHOP
February 5th 11:00 am – 4:30 pm
February 6th, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm
$700 Workshop includes lecture at 9:30am

Join internationally acclaimed painter Michele Del Campo for an engaging lecture exploring the creative process behind his evocative figurative paintings, where ordinary moments become rich with mystery, emotion, and narrative. Blending influences from old master paintings, cinema, photography, travel, and personal memory, Del Campo creates works that invite viewers to imagine the stories unfolding beyond the frame.

 

Through a presentation of his paintings and behind-the-scenes insights into his studio practice, Del Campo will discuss how he develops compositions that balance realism with ambiguity, transforming fleeting encounters and everyday spaces into compelling visual narratives. He will share his approach to working from observation and photographic references, composing dynamic multi-figure scenes, and using light, color, gesture, and atmosphere to create paintings that resonate long after they are viewed.

Whether you are a painter, illustrator, photographer, or art enthusiast, this lecture offers a unique opportunity to gain insight into the artistic decisions that transform representational painting into storytelling.

LECTURE
February 5th 9:30am-11:00am
$25 Lecture only

Michele Del Campo grew up in southern Italy and began drawing at an early age. He studied Illustration and Printmaking in England and Scotland, earning a BA(Hons) in 2001, before completing his Fine Arts studies at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. In 2006, he received Spain’s prestigious Premio BMW painting prize.

After living and exhibiting in Madrid, London, and Glasgow, Del Campo embraced a nomadic lifestyle, traveling with his paintings and finding inspiration in the people and places he encountered. In 2023, he moved to Miami, where he currently lives and works.

Del Campo has exhibited internationally in cities including Madrid, Barcelona, London, Milan, Lima, San Francisco, and Dallas. His paintings focus on people, relationships, and human stories, often placing figures in deliberately ambiguous settings that blend characteristics of different cities. His work explores displacement, vitality, solitude, and the fleeting nature of life.

If you’ve ever needed bezel settings for larger or unusually shaped gemstones, the right bezel setting is often impossible to find. And if the only way to obtain one is by custom fabricating it yourself, because nothing commercially available will work – then this workshop is for you. In this 19-hour workshop, we will learn how to build step bezels with a particular focus on creating them for faceted stones. In project #1 we will make a pair of hinged step bezel earrings with bead riveted lever-back tops that articulate. In project #2 we will make a step bezel setting for a larger irregularly shaped stone. Suzanne will introduce some of the many findings that can be fabricated and attached to the completed stone setting to create a pendant. Suzanne will also demonstrate how to create step bezel tube settings for round stones and if there is time – participants will also make one of these.

You will learn how to:

• Measure length and depth of strip for stone seats
• Form/shape strip to match gemstone contours
• Miter sharp-edged corners for stone seats.
• Wrap stone seats with an outer bezel strip to achieve maximum fit.
• Solder inner seat and outer bezel components together.
• Create hinges so that earrings will articulate.
• Create components and findings that are compatible with and enhance step bezels so that they can be incorporated into pendants, earrings, brooches and rings.
• · Set stones in completed step bezel settings

WORKSHOP
Feb 18th 1:30 – 4:30pm
Feb 19th  9:30 – 4:30 pm
Feb 20th 9:30 – 4:30 pm
$950 Workshop includes lecture

Coming Soon

LECTURE
February 18, 6 – 7 pm
$25 Lecture only

Suzanne, a Colorado resident, graduated from Colorado State University in 1980 with a degree in printmaking. She later worked as a graphic artist, illustrator, fine artist, and technician in art/bronze casting foundries prior to starting her metalsmithing career in 1990. She has shown her award-winning work in many art festivals, galleries, and group shows. Suzanne is always working on developing and applying new techniques and approaches to creating her signature 3-dimensional jewelry. This includes building unique gemstone settings to incorporate into her jewelry pieces. In the last eight years she has also been teaching workshops to share her extensive metalsmithing and design experience with others.

How can a simple cup or bowl hold the memory of a landscape?

In this immersive master workshop, ceramic artist Andrés Montenegro explores how personal history, geography, and material can become inseparable in the making of functional pottery. Drawing inspiration from nature, students will investigate how landscape can inform every aspect of a vessel, from its silhouette and proportions to its surface, texture, and firing.

Through demonstrations, discussions, and hands-on making, participants will learn to translate observation and memory into expressive forms while exploring the atmospheric effects of soda firing and thoughtful surface development. Emphasizing craftsmanship alongside conceptual thinking, this workshop offers an opportunity to deepen both technical skills and artistic voice through the timeless language of clay.

Lecture is included in the workshop and participants do not have to register for the lecture separately.

WORKSHOP
March 5th 9am – 4pm & March 6th, 9am – 4pm
$725 + $20 lab fee Workshop includes lecture

Join ceramic artist Andrés Montenegro for an inspiring lecture exploring the ideas, experiences, and landscapes that shape his distinctive body of work. Drawing from his Peruvian heritage and the dramatic meeting of ocean and desert along Peru’s coastline, Montenegro will discuss how memory, place, and everyday ritual inform his approach to creating contemporary functional ceramics.

Through images of his work and insights into his creative process, he will examine the evolution of a vessel from initial inspiration to finished piece, revealing how form, proportion, surface, and atmospheric firing work together to create objects that are both functional and deeply expressive. Participants will gain a behind-the-scenes look at his studio practice, artistic influences, and philosophy that thoughtfully crafted handmade objects have the power to enrich daily life.

LECTURE
March 5th, 6-7 pm
$25 Lecture only

Andres Montenegro was born in Lima, Peru, and moved to Florida in 2004. He began working with clay at Seminole State College and earned a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Central Florida in 2016.

In May 2019, he received his MFA from Bowling Green State University, specializing in three-dimensional studies in ceramics and sculpture. During his graduate studies, Montenegro taught his first college-level courses, where he discovered that teaching and working with clay were equally integral to his practice.

After graduating, Montenegro worked as a Ceramics Adjunct Professor at Daytona State College in Daytona Beach for four years. He also served as Director of Jane’s Art Center in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, for three years.

In addition to his teaching and studio practice, Montenegro is the co-founder of Spruce Creek Pottery in Port Orange, Florida, which he established with his wife and partner in 2024. He sells his work nationally through galleries and his online store.

Explore the ancient art of die making and learn to create beautiful hollow beads and forms using techniques inspired by ancient goldsmiths. This workshop introduces a contemporary reclamation of ancient technology through newly developed hollow-form dies from the Queen Puabi Collection.

Participants will learn how to use these specialized dies to create lightweight, dimensional hollow beads without complicated equipment or a hydraulic press. Using a leather mallet, dies, annealing techniques, and 30–26 gauge sheet metal in copper, fine or Argentium silver, or 22k gold, students will discover how accessible and versatile this historic process can be.

After mastering the die-forming process, participants will learn techniques for fusing or soldering their forms together and transforming them into unique, wearable jewelry. Blending ancient metalsmithing traditions with contemporary design, this workshop offers an opportunity to explore the rich possibilities of hollow-form jewelry making.

WORKSHOP
March 12th, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM, Workshop
April 13th, 9:30 Am – 4:30 Pm, Workshop
$725 + $20 material fee Workshop includes lecture at 6pm

Join master goldsmith Jeanette K. Caines for a fascinating exploration of ancient jewelry-making traditions and the ongoing work of preserving, reconstructing, and reimagining techniques from the past. Drawing on years of research into historic goldsmithing practices, Caines will share her journey investigating how ancient makers created remarkable jewelry with deceptively simple tools and extraordinary technical skill. The jewelry of Queen Puabi of ancient Mesopotamia along with ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan goldsmithing examples will illuminate the ingenuity and sophistication of early metalsmiths.

Caines will also discuss what it means to reclaim a technique when the knowledge of how something was made has been partially or completely lost. Through research, observation, experimentation, and hands-on reconstruction, ancient objects become more than artifacts to admire, they become teachers.

Part art history, part technical investigation, and part celebration of making, this lecture considers how preserving the knowledge embedded within objects can connect contemporary artists to thousands of years of human creativity and craftsmanship.

LECTURE
March 12th 6-7pm
$25 Lecture only

• Jeanette K. Caines is a master goldsmith, author, and educator with over 33 years of experience at the bench. She is the Director and Owner of Jewelry Arts Inc, the only school in the world dedicated exclusively to handmade ancient jewelry making techniques — including Etruscan granulation, Byzantine enameling, die forming, and high-karat goldwork.She began her career as a student at Jewelry Arts in the 1990s, became its Director in 2009, and took ownership in 2017.
  She is now in her fourth decade of teaching, having trained thousands of jewelers in ancient techniques — first from her studio bench, and now through digital education.She is the author of Soldering Demystified, a technical manual that has helped thousands of jewelers develop a deeper understanding of torch control and soldering.
  She has published multiple research papers, contributed articles to the MJSA Journal and Metalsmith Magazine, and given public talks and live demonstrations on ancient jewelry making techniques at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, and the Bard Graduate Center.
  Her Bird earrings were featured in the PBS NOVA special Treasures of the Earth: Metals, highlighting her mastery of historical goldsmithing techniques.Her research includes:
  • Recreating the ancient die-forming methods behind the goldwork of Queen Puabi, drawn from the Mesopotamian Royal Tombs of Ur.
  • A collaborative effort with Beijing University of Technology to document and preserve traditional Chinese filigree.
  • Investigating Etruscan granulation and construction techniques through direct analysis of pieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection.She is also the creator of Dr. Goldsmith, a monthly membership program where she helps jewelers diagnose and correct the kinds of bench problems that rarely get addressed in traditional instruction.
  Through her book, published research, decades of hands-on teaching, and a library of over 520 free tutorial videos on YouTube, Jeanette has made it her mission to preserve ancient goldsmithing techniques and make expert training accessible to jewelers everywhere.The techniques that created the most beautiful jewelry in human history have something profound to teach for anyone serious about mastering the craft today.

Move beyond the traditional vessel and discover how ceramic form can become a space for storytelling. In this immersive Master Artist Workshop, Jessica Brandl invites participants to explore the intersection of ceramics, drawing, painting, and narrative.

 

Inspired by Brandl’s distinctive approach to clay, participants will develop ceramic forms that serve as three-dimensional canvases for imagery, memory, place, and personal symbolism. Through demonstrations, discussion, and hands-on experimentation, students will investigate how form and surface can work together to create layered visual narratives.

 

Participants will explore hand-building and altered forms, surface composition, image development, drawing and painting on clay, shifts in scale and perspective, and the juxtaposition of unexpected imagery. Particular attention will be given to how an image changes as it moves around a three-dimensional object—and how different sides of a ceramic form can reveal, interrupt, or complicate a story.

Rather than illustrating a single linear narrative, students will be encouraged to combine fragments of imagery, architecture, landscape, objects, and personal references to create ceramic works that invite interpretation and unfold as the viewer moves around them.

Designed for intermediate and advanced ceramic artists, this workshop emphasizes experimentation, conceptual development, and the creation of a personal visual language in clay.

WORKSHOP
April 9th, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM, Workshop
April 10th, 9:30 Am – 4:30 Pm, Workshop
$725 + $20 material fee Workshop includes lecture at 6pm

Join ceramic artist Jessica Brandl for an engaging lecture exploring how clay can become a powerful vehicle for storytelling, memory, and imagination. Brandl will discuss the evolution of her distinctive practice, in which ceramic forms become three-dimensional canvases populated by landscapes, architecture, objects, and unexpected imagery.

 

 

Through an exploration of her work and creative process, Brandl will discuss the relationship between form and surface, the influence of drawing and painting on her ceramics, and the ways imagery can shift and unfold as viewers move around an object. She will also share how personal experience, place, symbolism, humor, and psychological tension inform her visual language.

Offering insight into both the ideas and processes behind her work, this lecture invites audiences to reconsider the ceramic vessel not simply as a functional object, but as a dynamic space for narrative, experimentation, and contemporary artistic expression.

LECTURE
April 9th 6-7pm
$25 Lecture only

Michele Del Campo grew up in southern Italy and began drawing at an early age. He studied Illustration and Printmaking in England and Scotland, earning a BA(Hons) in 2001, before completing his Fine Arts studies at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. In 2006, he received Spain’s prestigious Premio BMW painting prize.

After living and exhibiting in Madrid, London, and Glasgow, Del Campo embraced a nomadic lifestyle, traveling with his paintings and finding inspiration in the people and places he encountered. In 2023, he moved to Miami, where he currently lives and works.

Del Campo has exhibited internationally in cities including Madrid, Barcelona, London, Milan, Lima, San Francisco, and Dallas. His paintings focus on people, relationships, and human stories, often placing figures in deliberately ambiguous settings that blend characteristics of different cities. His work explores displacement, vitality, solitude, and the fleeting nature of life.

Discover how colored pencils can achieve extraordinary realism in this immersive master workshop inspired by the meticulous techniques of contemporary photorealist artists, Galal Ramadan. Learn how to build luminous color through dozens of transparent layers, create seamless transitions, and capture lifelike textures ranging from skin and fabric to glass, metal, and natural forms. Through demonstrations and individualized instruction, participants will explore professional techniques for color selection, layering, burnishing, and preserving detail while developing a richly rendered drawing from a photographic reference. Ideal for intermediate and advanced artists seeking to elevate their colored pencil practice.

Lecture is included in the workshop and participants do not have to register for the lecture separately.

WORKSHOP

April 16^th, 6-9pm and April 17th, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm
$525 Workshop includes lecture at 5pm on April 16th

Join internationally recognized colored pencil artist Galal Ramadan for an engaging one-hour artist talk and demonstration exploring his creative process, artistic journey, and the remarkable techniques behind his breathtaking photorealistic drawings. Through a presentation of his work, Galal will discuss how he transforms simple colored pencils into richly detailed works of art that rival the depth and realism of photography. He will share insights into his inspiration, reference selection, color layering methods, and the patience and precision required to achieve extraordinary realism. The lecture concludes with an audience Q&A, offering participants a unique opportunity to learn directly from the artist before the hands-on master workshop.

Participants who want to join the hands-on master workshop must sign up for it separately.

LECTURE
April 16th 5-6pm
$25 Lecture only

Galal Ramadan is an award-winning, self-taught master colored pencil artist and accomplished fine art educator based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, as the eighth of eleven children, he grew up in a modest home where formal art resources were a luxury. Despite limited early exposure, he was instinctively drawn to the visual world —captivated by the shifting colors of the Mediterranean Sea, the rich textures of weathered architectural walls, and the deeply expressive faces of everyday life. After immigrating to the United States, Ramadan channeled his creative eye into a successful career spanning graphic design, marketing, and business. However, his ultimate calling remained the fine arts. Today, he is internationally recognized for his hyper-realistic colored pencil portraits, landscapes, and narrative still life. His signature style relies on a meticulous, painterly layering technique—often executed on translucent polyester drafting film—that achieves a striking depth, brilliant saturation, and luminosity akin to fine oil painting. Ramadan’s masterworks have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the globe and highlighted in leading publications, including Colored Pencil Magazine, International Artist, and Artists Magazine. He holds elite professional credentials, including Signature Member status with both the Colored Pencil Society of America (CPSA, CPX) and the United Kingdom Colour Pencil Society (UKCPS Silver, UKCPSO). He is also an Elected Member of the American Artists Professional League (AAPL) and maintains active memberships with the International Guild of Realism (IGOR), the Florida Artists Group (FLAG), and the Arts Council of Hillsborough County. Deeply committed to fostering the next generation of artists, Ramadan shares his expertise through highly structured workshops throughout South Florida.