Figure painting in oils – Spring 2017

Hats off to everyone with these studies in acrylics – not only were folks very restrained and resisted the temptation to eat the still life in front of them, they also did a fantastic job at a deceptively tricky subject. Painting cakes is harder than you think – have a go and post your results…

What fun we had with these impressionist portraits. After getting over the initial nerves at painting a couple of portraits in a 2.5 hour session, let alone portraits from the great impressionists, the paint was flowing and faces started to appear. This was a great exercise in a number of things. Firstly, practicing portraits without…

What a lovely day I had with the artists from South Muskham art group. We painted a portrait in oils – starting with preparing an acrylic background on our canvas, learning a method for gridding to get our image in proportion before transferring to the canvas. We then had fun painting with oils. The subject…

We’re looking at small, speedy painting in this block of lessons. We’re concentrating on getting an idea of the subject across with minimum fuss, learning to paint what we see plus practice colour finding. Whether we like to paint in detail or loosely, this is a good exercise to do as it requires little time…

After a week of portraits, some students fancied trying a still life subject so we chose Cezanne as a reference for his bold colours and brushwork. These were painted in a similar manner to the portraits – in oils, around an hour per painting. I think they’ve come up with some great paintings. These little…

For the next 4 weeks we’re going to be painting quickly – getting used to the feel of the paint, enjoying colour, not taking ourselves too seriously and seeing what we can produce. It’s often surprising what you end up with if you choose to paint quickly – some will work out, some won’t. Those…