**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. Our business hours are 10:00 AM through 5:00 PM. All course information and email correspondence will be sent during business hours. If students purchase a course, workshop, demo or recording outside business hours or during the weekend the course information or recording will be sent the following business day.
DEMO: https://youtu.be/Kyd0WGWKEII
This four-week course is designed for intermediate painters who want to deepen their technical skills and expressive clarity in representational painting. Through guided exercises, instructor demos, and critiques, students will explore composition, color, value, edge control, and atmosphere—key ingredients of compelling representational work. Painters will work from drawings and life at home or outdoors, and the course will include live demonstrations, group discussion, and optional homework assignments.
Week 1 - Getting started.
Topics:
Why paint? What’s the point?
What should you paint? Determining the subject matter.
Design: Why composition matters.
How to approach painting: process strategies (with examples of great representational paintings).
The surface you paint on.
Live Demo (45 minutes): How to make a “perfect" surface.
Week 2 - Structure & Simplicity — The Power of the Block-In.
Topics:
Drawing for painters: proportion, structure, gesture.
Massing in value.
Simplifying complex forms.
Principles of representational painting.
Live Demo (45 min): Blocking in a still life.
In-Class Practice: Students block in a simple composition focusing on value shapes and proportion.
Homework: Block in a landscape painted on-site — draw the composition on canvas, block in major shapes and values.
Week 3 - Value, Light & Form.
Topics:
Seeing light: light areas, midtones, shadow, reflected light.
Palette color mixing.
Temperature shifts in light and shadow.
Creating depth with value.
Basic form modeling with subtle value shifts.
Soft vs. hard edges and their psychological effect.
Live Demo (45 min): Continuing work on the still life.
In-Class Practice: Rendering forms from a basic still life setup with emphasis on value transitions.
Homework: Set up your own still life using a strong single light source and complete a monochrome value study.
Week 4 - Refinement and Finish
Topics:
Finishing techniques: refining vs. overworking.
Being brave and taking chances.
Evaluating your own painting. When is it done?
Live Demo (45 min): Refining and finishing the still life painting.
In-Class Practice: Open critique of each other’s paintings.
Homework (optional): Complete paintings and submit for final critique or peer review.
Oil paints (suggested palette, at a minimum: Titanium White, Cadmium Red Light or Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, purple, Burnt Umber, black)
oil painting medium — consider making your own out of 1⁄3 stand oil, 1⁄3
turpentine, 1⁄3 damar varnish
Brushes (variety of sizes, flats and filberts recommended)
Palette knife
Palette
For stretching your own canvas:
heavy duty stretcher bars
Gamblin PVA sizing
Gamblin oil painting ground
vine charcoal
Workable fixative
Rags or paper towels
Easel or tabletop setup
Good lighting source
Optional: viewfinder, mirror
**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. Our business hours are 10:00 AM through 5:00 PM. All course information and email correspondence will be sent during business hours. If students purchase a course, workshop, demo or recording outside business hours or during the weekend the course information or recording will be sent the following business day.
DEMO: https://youtu.be/Kyd0WGWKEII
This four-week course is designed for intermediate painters who want to deepen their technical skills and expressive clarity in representational painting. Through guided exercises, instructor demos, and critiques, students will explore composition, color, value, edge control, and atmosphere—key ingredients of compelling representational work. Painters will work from drawings and life at home or outdoors, and the course will include live demonstrations, group discussion, and optional homework assignments.
Week 1 - Getting started.
Topics:
Why paint? What’s the point?
What should you paint? Determining the subject matter.
Design: Why composition matters.
How to approach painting: process strategies (with examples of great representational paintings).
The surface you paint on.
Live Demo (45 minutes): How to make a “perfect" surface.
Week 2 - Structure & Simplicity — The Power of the Block-In.
Topics:
Drawing for painters: proportion, structure, gesture.
Massing in value.
Simplifying complex forms.
Principles of representational painting.
Live Demo (45 min): Blocking in a still life.
In-Class Practice: Students block in a simple composition focusing on value shapes and proportion.
Homework: Block in a landscape painted on-site — draw the composition on canvas, block in major shapes and values.
Week 3 - Value, Light & Form.
Topics:
Seeing light: light areas, midtones, shadow, reflected light.
Palette color mixing.
Temperature shifts in light and shadow.
Creating depth with value.
Basic form modeling with subtle value shifts.
Soft vs. hard edges and their psychological effect.
Live Demo (45 min): Continuing work on the still life.
In-Class Practice: Rendering forms from a basic still life setup with emphasis on value transitions.
Homework: Set up your own still life using a strong single light source and complete a monochrome value study.
Week 4 - Refinement and Finish
Topics:
Finishing techniques: refining vs. overworking.
Being brave and taking chances.
Evaluating your own painting. When is it done?
Live Demo (45 min): Refining and finishing the still life painting.
In-Class Practice: Open critique of each other’s paintings.
Homework (optional): Complete paintings and submit for final critique or peer review.
Oil paints (suggested palette, at a minimum: Titanium White, Cadmium Red Light or Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, purple, Burnt Umber, black)
oil painting medium — consider making your own out of 1⁄3 stand oil, 1⁄3
turpentine, 1⁄3 damar varnish
Brushes (variety of sizes, flats and filberts recommended)
Palette knife
Palette
For stretching your own canvas:
heavy duty stretcher bars
Gamblin PVA sizing
Gamblin oil painting ground
vine charcoal
Workable fixative
Rags or paper towels
Easel or tabletop setup
Good lighting source
Optional: viewfinder, mirror
