From Sketch to Oil Painting (Online Course) Winter 2026 w/ Edwige Fouvry

March 3 to March 31 (Tuesdays), 10:00 AM to 12:30 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/2eXbvAplFb8

Course Description

In this course, I will guide you in the process of creating an outdoor sketch, using pencil and some colors (pencils, watercolors, ink etc) and applying what we learned from the sketch to canvas in our studio. The process of creating a study sketch helps us as artists in using our imagination and intuition. If you can’t go outside, we can work from photos from your favorite place.

During this course I will explain to you how to use the oil colors, mediums, brushes and rags etc. Knowing your art material and technical practice is very important. I will also answer all your questions and I will be here to help you make progress.

Course Outline

Week 1 -

How to choose a location for the composition, light and mood of the sketch.

The first step will be to mark the mains lines, and quickly set up the first colored elements.

You can use pencils, watercolors or any tool you are comfortable with and easy to carry.

This will be a quick sketch, so no oil colors at this stage.

Week 2 - 

Looking at our sketches, we will focus on: which ones are more interesting, and why. I will comment on your work and help you to move on towards your painting.

Even though we are not striving for realism in this course, observation is the key for good art.

We will discuss about palettes, colors, warm-cold, colored greys, shadows etc.

Week 3 -

I will demonstrate with oil and begin the large painting. I will begin by applying the first layers with fluid paint. We will see together how to gain the same mood of our sketches in the painting.

Week 4 - 

A brief history of how master artists utilized their sketches. I will go on to demonstrate.

I  will comment on your own works (on padlet).

Week 5 -

This last session will be about reviewing your works and giving you advice about artistic practice.

Course Materials List

Sketch:

A sketch book for all media , for water based paint or watercolor watercolor, pencils , etc

A graphite pencil

Eraser,

Watercolor, or inks, or colored pencils, anything you like to work with and easy to carry (of course, no oil paint at this point). You don’t need to have a large range of colors, this is only for

quick sketches at first. If you don’t like to use colors in sketches, you also can work only in greys (with gradients), or just one color (with gradients)

At the studio:

We will work with oil colors, odor acrylic if you prefer.

Use a maximum of the supplies you already have, you don’t need to have a specific color i

mention.

Rags

Somme brushes, small ,medium, big and a spalter.

A canvas, or paper , or wood board, around 40x60 cm, or a scale you feel confortable with

Armless solvent, as Gamsol, liquid

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate, and i will answer at our first session.

OIL colors

Titanium White

Lemon Yellow

Fake Cadmium Yellow. You can get colors that are like Cadmium Yellow like: Permanent Yellow Medium (Williamsbourg, or another brand)

Alizarine Crimson,

fake Cadmium Red: Pyrole red (Williamsbourg)

Turquoise Blue

Ceruleum Blue

Ultramarine Blue

Yellow Ochre

Burnt Sienna

Raw Umber or Cassel Earth

A dark green like Courbet Green or Viridian etc