Painting The Tonal Landscape (Online Course) Winter 2027 w/ Ben Bauer

January 12 to February 9 (Tuesdays) 11:00 AM to 1:00 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.

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.

Course Description

Each student comes to class with an idea/reference photo/painting that they would like to turn into a tonalist landscape. Tonalism, in short, can be turning a painting into a mood or feeling using color, design and even materials. You want to evoke the senses of the viewer.

We will discover ideas thru 4 up thumbnail exercises; focusing on design, color palette and what we want to say. We will then progress the thumbnail we like best into a study where we will focus on shapes, color, techniques. Once we are set on our study work we graduate to the final painting. Ben will be lecturing and demoing; idea thumbnails, study and final painting.

Course Outline

Week 1 - What is Tonalism

Introduction, background, work examples

What is “tonalism”

Lecture on idea forming

DEMO on thumbnails drawing and composition/design

Finding what we want to say, how we want to say it.

HOMEWORK - continue finding idea through the thumbnail process in sketchbook with value

makers.

Week 2 - Demo on idea building thru 4up panels

Follow up - each student has 30 seconds to show progress on thumbnails

Demo and assignment

11x14 quartered panel

Exploring moods and lighting scenarios for your finished painting

Thumbnails > Study>Final Painting

Week 3 - color

Follow up from week 2

Lecture on color and value

Demo and assignment

Picking one of our ideas we moving into a little bit larger study

Thumbnails > Study>Final Painting

Week 4 - produce painting from study work

DEMO - Ben will conduct a painting from his thumbnail to value/color studies.

Student encouraged to paint while Ben is doing his demo.

Week 5 - continuing week 4

Each student will continue to paint with live look in and feedback.

Course Materials List

These are the paints I currently have on my palette, I may use only a few colors for a specific reason. It is not expected for everyone to go out and buy everyone of these brands for the class. They are the ones I love and use.

Paints - (same colors for oil and or acrylic)

Titanium White - Williamsburg

Cad Yellow Light - Williamsburg

Cad Yellow Lemon- Williamsburg

Cad Red light - Williamsburg

Quin Magenta - Windsor Newton

Viridian - Windsor Newton

Crimson Lake - Holbein

Cobalt Blue - Utrecht

French Ultramarine Deep - Old Holland

Cold Black - Windsor Newton

Raw Umber - for toning panels/canvases

Mediums

Linseed oil 15% cut with odorless mineral spirits or Spike Oil -85%

NOOD or Artist Mineral Spirit

Brushes

Rosemary and Co - Ivory

Flats size 2-12 - Mainly use 4,6,10

Princeton Dakota 6300 Series

Flats size 2-12 - Mainly use 2,4,6,8

Surfaces

Sketchbook, spiral bound. Value markers

One good surface to paint on for your finished painting. Any size works up to 18x24

2 - 11x14 canvases/panels - quartered like below. These are for exercises.

I use mostly oil primed linen panels and hand primed panels.

Artefex - linen 537

Cleaseens - type 15, 12, 66