Making a Believable Painting (Online Course) Fall 2025 w/ Louisa Lorenz

November 4 to December 2 (Tuesdays), 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM, Eastern Time

**All sessions are live and will be recorded, students do not have to be present. All recordings will be available to students for 3 months after the final session, after 3 months the recording will be deleted.

Please check your email spam/junk folder for your Zoom invite.

DEMO: https://youtu.be/nKzRVBMjWgg

Course Description

In this course we will be creating believable paintings. We will discuss how a human sees and breakdown what you are seeing. We will practice being expressive and being direct with our painting approach while painting from a photo.

There will be a deep focus on value, shape, light and shadow, color, temperature, color harmony, texture, brushwork, variety, and edges.

Students will come away from this course knowing the tools to create an interesting painting that feels believable. Students will understand what to look for to make convincing and interesting paintings. I will be working with oils, students are welcome to use other mediums. Students are encouraged to work from provided reference images. I will work with students at their level to help them grow.

Course Outline

Week 1

• Welcome introductions and going over course materials

• Discuss the importance of value and shape in a believable panting  

• Demo

• Assignment #1: Create a painting with focus on clear value and strong interesting shapes 

Week 2

• Discuss light and shadow

• Demo

• Assignment #2: Create a painting with believable light and shadow based on what you know

Week 3

• Discuss color, saturation, and harmony  

• Demo

• Assignment #3: Create a painting with harmony that focuses on warm and cool 

Week 4

• Discuss edges

• Demo

• Assignment #4: Create a painting with a focus on a variety of edges

Week 5

• Discuss texture, variety and intentional mark making

• Demo 

• Assignment #5: Create a painting with a focus on texture and variety

Course Materials

Oil paint- Louisa’s palette 

• Titanium white- Blick

• Cad Yellow Light- Gamblin

• Cad Yellow Medium- Gamblin

• Cad Orange- Gamblin

• Cad Red Light Hue- Blick

• Alizarin Crimson- Blick

• Cerulean Blue- Blick

• Phthalo Blue- Blick

• Viridian Hue- Blick

• Yellow Ochre- Blick 

• Transparent Iron Oxide Red- Utrecht

• Quinacridone Magenta- Blick

• Permanent Rose- Blick

• Grey of Grey- Holbein

Brushes

• Assortment of Filbert synthetic brushes around 6,8,10,12 (I use https://www.jerrysartarama.com/creative-mark-qualita-golden-taklon-value-brush-long-handle-set-of-6-72575)

• About a 6 Flat synthetic 

• 0 or 1 brush

• Palette knife 

Surface- I use Acrylic Primed MDF (hardboard) panel

• At least 5 surfaces around 12x12, 12x16, 16x16, 16x20, 20x20, 24x24 (panel or canvas panel) whatever you feel comfortable with. 

Miscellaneous 

• Linseed oil (in a little jar)

• Rubber gloves

• Viva Paper towels 

• Trash can

• Gamsol- container 

• Sketchbook 

• Pencil and sharpie

• Easel of some kind