WATER MILL, NY.- The Education Department of the Parrish Art Museum has created Live from the Studio, a new series of FREE live-streamed art workshops every Wednesday morning, featuring a rotating roster of Parrish teaching artists. The series kicks off Wednesday, April 8, from 11 –11:45am with painter Barbara Thomas, who will lead a Still Life Flower Painting class, inspired by selections from the Parrish collection and her own works. The class is open to all participants, adults and families, at any skill level.

"The artists who teach at the Parrish each have their own expertise and following. They have volunteered to share workshops from their studios to connect with students from home,” said Cara Conklin-Wingfield, Parrish Education Director. “We all need art right now and Barbara and the other artists are generously sharing their time to bring art to the Parrish community. They are helping to keep us connected through making art."

Thomas, established in the community as an accomplished artist and teacher, has led her popular Landscape Painting and Painting en Plein Air workshops at the Parrish for decades. In those classes, students studied proportions and composition, and learned to use materials to create clouds, grass, trees, and all their colors, light, and shadows. In her Still Life Flower Painting class, Thomas covers many of those same techniques.

During the class, participants are invited to follow along with her instruction, while interacting through a live Q& A. The only materials needed are pencils, paints, brushes, or any other drawing supplies participants may have in their homes. In preparation for the class, Thomas recommends setting up a vase next to the computer, holding a simple, medium-size arrangement such as a bouquet of flowers, collection of budding branches, or other natural material. A simple background is recommended so that that focus is on the still life. (Visit parrishart.org for more information or to register.)

Live from the Studio continues in the following weeks with Eric Dever on April 15, and Laurie Lambrecht on April 22. Future artists and topics will be announced. All classes will be recorded and available on parrishart.org for future viewing.

Barbara Thomas is known on the East Coast for her commission works of houses, gardens and properties, golf courses, and murals. Her watercolor and oil paintings of landscapes, cityscapes, animals, gardens, and architecture have been written about in Architectural Digest, Town and Country Magazine, Forbes FYI, the Robb Report, Quest Magazine, Hamptons Cottages and Gardens, and others. Her current art practice includes making paintings and video projects centered on nature themes. Thomas lives was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her father was Fritz Siebel, renowned illustrator of such children's classics as the Amelia Bedelia series. Thomas’s formal art education includes The Art Students League in New York City, Pratt Institute, and an MFA from Art Institute of Boston. She has had many gallery shows on the East End, in New York, and nationwide. with her husband in East Hampton.