Learn, play, and create in this beginner-friendly, drop-in watercolor workshop along Boston’s waterfront. On Aug 21, the program expands to two scenic waterfront locations — the ICA and Commonwealth Pier — each offering guidance from an experienced watercolor artist. Visit both locations to paint different perspectives of Boston Harbor, and explore watercolor through experimentation, creativity, and play. You’ll be encouraged to embrace mistakes, find inspiration in the waterfront, and create something uniquely your own. While all experience levels are welcome, this workshop is designed for adults.

At the ICA, Boston-based artist Lisa Goren leads a playful, supportive session that encourages creative exploration. At Commonwealth Pier, artist and educator Eugene Finney celebrates experimentation, using repeated studies to discover new color relationships and expressive brushwork.

For Watercolor by the Water ticket holders: Participation is available on a drop-in, first-come, first-served basis, subject to space availability. All ticket holders should check in at the ICA upon arrival, and staff will direct you to the appropriate location based on accessibility and availability. Commonwealth Pier an approximately 10-minute walk from the ICA.  

This series is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Derrick Adams: View Master.

About Commonwealth Pier

Commonwealth Pier is a year-round, public waterfront destination that invites exploration, connection and community along Boston Harbor. Anchored in the Seaport neighborhood, it offers an experience where dining, shopping, work and leisure converge with the city’s history, arts, culture and innovation. Originally opened in 1913 and known as Commonwealth Pier — later home to the Seaport World Trade Center for decades — the historic site has been comprehensively reimagined by Pembroke as today’s Commonwealth Pier, honoring its legacy while embracing a new future. The destination brings together a dynamic mix of new restaurants and retail, modern office space, a waterfront plaza, a revitalized Harborwalk, the Seaport East and West office towers and the Seaport Hotel — all woven together through art and thoughtfully designed green spaces. With year-round programming, Commonwealth Pier connects locals and visitors to the broader Boston community and waterfront. For more information, please visit commonwealthpier.com.

About the Instructors

Lisa Goren was born in California and raised in NYC. And yet she has dreamed of Polar landscapes since she was in her teens. Her first trip to Antarctica inspired her to capture this world. Travels to Iceland and Alaska followed. Her watercolors examine this unfamiliar landscape and create questions about the nature of abstraction and our planet with her representations of unfamiliar, threatened terrains. 

Earning a place on the 2013 Arctic Circle Residency, Goren chronicled her journey in New York Times. During the pandemic, she worked on smaller paintings of animals in human spaces as well as portraits of health care workers—selected for “The best art created by Washington Post readers during the pandemic.” In 2025, Goren participated in two artist residencies in Nantucket and France. 

Whether in the studio, on the film set, or in the theater, Eugene Finney’s journey has always involved a set of watercolors.  He’s a classically trained artist and educator with an interdisciplinary studio practice spanning more than four decades. A two-time artist resident at the Academia in Florence, Italy, his current painting practice is rooted in systematic combinations of Old Master techniques that utilize contemporary colors and palettes. 

For Eugene, watercolors are the most direct way to paint and the place where he prefers to play with and push color combinations.  Always working on multiples of the same image, Eugene’s process allows him to find ways to learn what the painting wants to be while still being able to experiment with the paint and brushstrokes in an informed way.