Sean Taylor
Sean has been painting since 1989. As a dyslexic child, he struggled with traditional schoolwork but discovered a gift for drawing and painting — a gift that eventually helped fund graduate studies in Uppsala, Sweden.
Between 1998 and 2001 he traveled through 27 countries across Europe, working almost entirely in pen-and-ink and watercolor because the materials were light enough to carry in a single bag. Before Sweden, he spent nearly six years as an artist-in-residence, teaching art to elementary students during their school-year intercessions.
When his formal teaching career began in 2000, he made a habit of painting alongside his students every time — living proof that even natural ability has to be practiced and studied, not just possessed. Sean is also the founder of The Reading Sage, an education blog read by up to two million visitors a year around the world. When he isn't teaching, he takes on a small number of fine-art charcoal portrait commissions each year.
Monet in a Day
Everyone in the room paints the same Monet, one guided step at a time. Sean walks you through the composition, the color mixing, and the brushwork — while weaving in the real history behind the painting.
- First hour
Composition & the palette
You're handed the same nine tubes Monet trusted for most of his career, and shown how he mixed them — no black among them.
- Middle hours
Building the painting, layer by layer
Step-by-step guidance through your own canvas, alongside the story of the paint tube's 1841 invention and how it set painters free from the studio.
- Final stretch
Light, finishing touches, and a critique
Sean helps every student bring their canvas to a genuine finish — not a copy that only resembles Monet's, but one that's actually framable.
- You leave with
A finished, framable painting
Made entirely by your own hand, in Monet's own style.
Monet in a Day
- 3.5–4 hour seminar, small class size
- Canvas, easel, and the full 9-color palette
- A brief history of Impressionism, woven in as you paint
- No experience necessary
Micro Monets
An intimate, more contemplative companion to Monet in a Day. Working on small 5½ × 7 inch panels, students use Sennelier oil pastels — the same French pastels favored by Pablo Picasso — to build a single, jewel-like impressionistic scene: a glimpse of color and light rather than a full landscape.
Built for anyone who wants the meditative pleasure of painting without the scale — or the time commitment — of a full canvas.
How Impressionism got its color
For most of art history, painting was a studio affair — pigments ground by hand, mixed right before use, and stored, if at all, sealed inside a pig's bladder. In 1841, the American painter John Goffe Rand patented the collapsible metal paint tube, and everything changed.
Painting set free
Pre-mixed paint could finally be sealed, carried, and kept fresh for weeks. Painters left the studio behind and painted directly from life, outdoors, in changing light — what the French called painting en plein air. Renoir put it plainly: without paint in tubes, there would have been no Monet, no Cézanne, no Impressionism at all.
A discipline, not an experiment
By 1886, Monet had dropped black from his palette entirely, mixing his darks from color instead. Later in his career he became devoted to cobalt violet, convinced that the color of open air itself was violet. In this seminar, it's the exact palette you'll be handed.
Gallery-quality, impressionistic work
A selection of Sean's fine-art paintings, built with the same discipline of palette and light taught in the seminars.
Placeholder color fields shown above — swap each panel for a photograph of the finished canvas.
Two Tucson locations under consideration
St. Francis in the Foothills
4625 E River Rd, Tucson, AZ 85718A naturally landscaped desert campus at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains, with bright, flexible community spaces built for workshops — an easy, welcoming setting for a few hours of quiet, focused painting with a mountain view.
Catalyst Creative Collective
4500 N Oracle Rd, Tucson Mall, Tucson, AZ 85705A 14,000-square-foot creative hub inside Tucson Mall, run by the Southern Arizona Arts & Cultural Alliance — flexible classroom space, strong Wi-Fi, AV support, and a community of working creatives sharing the building around you.
Save your seat for the next Monet in a Day.
Class size is kept small on purpose. Email Sean directly to reserve a spot or ask which venue the next session will be held at.
Email Sean to Reserve.
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