Textures of Nature: Painting Convincing Rocks with Eric Hotz

Date: Tuesday, September 1st, 2026 

Time: 6.00 PM - 8.30 PM (PDT)

Location: Online Via Zoom

Medium: Acrylic & Ink

Level: Suitable for beginner/intermediate students

Workshop Overview:

Discover how to transform ordinary rocks into compelling focal points that bring strength, realism, and atmosphere to your landscape paintings. In this workshop, you'll learn a practical, step-by-step approach to painting convincing rocks using a limited palette of three primary colours, titanium white, and carbon black.

Beginning with simple pencil or ink sketches, you'll develop your subject through successive layers of colour, value, and texture. Emphasis will be placed on understanding form, light, reflected colour, and the importance of patient reworking—building each rock until it convincingly conveys its weight, character, and place within the landscape.

The workshop will also introduce pen-and-ink techniques that can be seamlessly integrated into acrylic painting to create rich surface textures. You'll explore methods such as cross-hatching, stippling, and ink washes to suggest weathered stone, cracks, and mineral details, including the distinctive mica found in British Columbia's granite formations.

Through demonstrations and guided painting exercises, you'll gain the confidence to simplify complex rock formations while capturing their unique textures and natural beauty. Whether painting streams, coastlines, or mountain landscapes, you'll leave with a deeper understanding of how to make rocks read convincingly and become powerful compositional elements in your work.

Supply List:

1. Pencil or black and dark grey ink felt pen.

2. Number 3 flat blush

3. Number 0/2 detail round brush

4. Hot press watercolour paper or hot press illustration board.

About the instructor - Eric Hotz: 

Born in Burnaby, BC. Eric studied Fine Art at Langara College, then enrolled in Graphic Design and Illustration at Capilano College in North Vancouver, attaining the highest GPA in his class for a male student, and was informed he tied with another male artist who graduated 4 years prior, for the highest GPA in the history of the program, at the time of his graduation. He has won several awards for his paintings through the FCA.