Animal Portraits with Yelena Lamm

Animal Portraits with Yelena Lamm

Friday & Saturday, February 26 & 27, 2027.
10 AM to 4 PM.
$350, includes lunch on Saturday. Supplies needed.
Limited to 10 Students.

Check out Yelena Lamm's website!

In this two-day workshop, you’ll learn to bring animals to life on canvas using traditional alla-prima oil painting techniques. Each class includes a live demonstration, guiding you from an expressive oil sketch to a finished painting. Explore key concepts like proportions, values, temperature shifts, and the power of brushstrokes. Discover how to paint fur with shape and movement, add sparkle to the eyes, sculpt form, capture black (or white) in all its shades, and tell a story through your composition — even down to the tail.

Some experience is recommended, but beginners and first-time oil painters are welcome and encouraged to join.

Materials Needed (Click on link to shop)

• Surfaces: 2 stretched canvases, canvas boards or panels, recommended size between 8"x10" and 11"x14"
• Brushes: Small to Medium Natural or Synthetic Short Flat sizes 4-10; Fan (1.5-2”, optional)
• Palette: Minimum 12”x16” palette for oil paints, wood, glass, or plastic, disposable paper palettes acceptable
• Medium: ODORLESS ONLY. Gamsol, linseed oil OK
• Containers for mediums
• Small sketch book, pencil, for notes and thumbnails 
• Paper towels or rags
• Gloves
• Brush cleaning soap
• Oil paints 
  • Ivory Black
  • Transparent Oxide Red (or Transparent Earth Red)
  • Chinese Orange (Sennelier), optional
  • Cadmium Red Light
  • Alizarin Crimson
  • Ultramarine Blue
  • Viridian
  • Radiant Green (Gamblin)
  • Radiant Turquoise (Gamblin)
  • Yellow Ochre
  • Titanium White

Artist Bio

Yelena Lamm was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where she received her formal art training from the N. K. Roerich Fine Arts School. Since 1995, she lives in Pittsburgh, PA. Yelena is painting primarily in oil. She is known for her portraits of pets and animals, in which she reflects on her subjects’ characters and personalities, as well as for her lively and colorful floral compositions. Yelena is a Signature member of Oil Painters of America (OPA), Society of Animal Artists (SAA), American Women Artists (AWA), American Impressionist Society (AIS), and National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS). Yelena’s works were selected for and won awards in juried regional and national shows. Her list of awards includes both 17th and 18th ARC Salon ARC Staff Awards, First Place in the Animals as the Subject category in 2024 and 2025 Portrait Society of America Members Only Competition, Most Original Award of Excellence in OPA 2023 Eastern Regional Exhibition, Outstanding Achievement Animals in AWA 2023 Annual Online Juried Show, and SAA 63rd Art & the Animal Exhibition Purchase Award. Britain’s most popular magazine for practicing artists, Artists and Illustrators, featured Yelena’s animal portraits in a 6-page article and on the cover of their June 2023 issue. The October 2025 issue of the Artists & Illustrators features Yelena’s step-by-step painting process in a 5-page feature article. Yelena’s works are represented by Reinert Fine Art in Charleston, SC, Main Exhibit Gallery in Ligonier, PA, The Zebra Gallery in Easton, MD, The Lucy Clark Gallery & Studio in Brevard, NC, and Picket Fence Art Studio in Woodinville, WA.