Poetic Landscape Painting (Online Course) Summer 2026 w/ Corey Hardeman

June 2 to June 23 (Tuesdays), 2:00 PM to 5:00 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.

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Course Description

Landscape painting is a way of engaging with the natural world while also opening our eyes to our own nature, our sense of home, our memories and dreams, and ultimately our place in the world. The landscape can be challenging, frightening, soothing, delightful or devastating, and when we enter it as painters we transcend observation to become a participant, a part of nature and a witness to its power. In this four week class, Corey Hardeman will emphasize loose, expressive painting. Participants will begin with sketching from life, and then work through small studies to develop a feel for the landscape and a finished piece that conveys mood, space, depth and emotion.

Course Outline

Week 1:

Introductions, a slide show and discussion of drawing in the field, perspective and depth, composition and mark making. I will include discussion of my own drawing practice and how I prepare  to work up a painting in studio from sketches and references. We will also discuss painting from life, from memory and from reference photos. Homework: create one or two short (15-20 minutes each) drawings in the field (outdoors if you’re able; otherwise a window or even a car windshield works just fine).

Week 2:

Beginning the oil sketch. Interpreting the drawings from week one in paint, we’ll discuss simplified shapes, separating values, the notan, and developing the idea of the painting. We’ll begin with a discussion of the drawings we’ve made, move through a slide show and a live painting demo in oils, during which I will welcome questions about my process, and we’ll consider the things that fascinate us about our chosen scenes and how we might like to approach them.
Homework: A small painting in your chosen medium, emphasizing colour accuracy, mark making, and loose expressive brushwork.

Week 3:

A discussion of the challenges and rewards of the homework assignment from week two, and an exercise in thinking about memories of landscapes that have impacted us. Landscape can be a vessel for emotion, for longing, for hope. In this session I will emphasize the emotional weight of landscape painting, and will include a brief writing and drawing exercise to help access our psychological connection to place. In this class I will demonstrate using tone and colour to create mood, and will respond to questions as I paint. We’ll also discuss under painting, premier coup, and glazing.
Homework: three or four very quick colour studies on paper (5-10 minutes maximum) and a monochromatic under painting.

Week 4:

Feedback about the exercises from week three, followed by a slide show and demo during which I will work my own underpainting up to a finished piece. We’ll discuss the choices we face as we work from the world we observe and from our own experiences, which elements we want to emphasize and which we might need to move or eliminate, freedom and balance. Again there will be time for questions, observations and suggestions.

Course Materials

Materials list:
- a sketchbook (11”x14” or larger)
- vine or compressed charcoal and a pencil
- a kneaded eraser
- a selection of brushes (whatever they normally use; I like an array of natural and synthetic bristle flats and rounds in sizes ranging from 2-8 or larger, plus a 1.5-2” cheap flat brush from the hardware store)
- Assuming they’re working with oils, medium: galkyd gel, Gamblin neo meglip or stand oil (whatever they’re accustomed to/comfortable working with), plus an odourless solvent like gamsol. If using acrylics, whatever thinners/mediums they would normally use.
- painting surfaces- again, I am not picky. Ampersand gessobord is a nice, easy and affordable smooth surface; birch panels, canvas, gator board- whatever they like to paint on. Two or three smaller supports in a range of sizes is ideal (5”x7” up to 11”x14” or so).
- nitrile gloves
- rags or paper towel (I use blue shop towels)
- a palette knife

-Suggested palette:

Titanium White
Black (Mars, Ivory, or Gamblin makes a Chromatic Black I am enjoying)
Yellow Ochre or Gold Ochre
Ultramarine Blue
Napthol or Cadmium Red
Alizarin Permanent or Similar ( I like Old Holland’s madder lake deep extra but no need to run out and buy it)
Raw Umber
Violet Grey
Hansa Yellow or Cadmium Yellow Hue (Light or Medium)
Chrome Green
Participants should feel free to make substitutions and additions - I tend to end up with a pretty expanded palette much of the time- as long as they have the primaries, a black and a white and a couple of earth tones.