ETRURIA HOUSE ART COURSES

Tutor: I have had work in the BP Portrait Award, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Discerning Eye and in numerous other group shows and several solo shows. I have an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and have been a regular tutor for the Wednesday group in Barnes for many years, and have also taught in Putney.

Course aim/description:

I’ve chosen to teach this course because I love oil painting and am eager to spread the word. The aim is to show you the sheer expressive range of oil paint, to teach you to handle oil paint with confidence, so that you’ll be hooked and keep doing it in the future. You will ideally come away from the course with two or three oil paintings that you are pleased with. I will start each class with a demo to highlight a particular aspect of oil painting, then see how people are progressing individually. I will be helping people with their drawing skills too, since drawing is essential to painting. If you are nervous about colour I will de-mystify it for you and help you build confidence.

What’s included:

One basic panel/canvas to start you off. Easels, linseed oil, solvent, kitchen towel. All the still life setups.

What you will need to bring:

Artists’ quality paint (Winsor and Newton): titanium white (ideally a big tube), cadmium yellow pale, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium orange, scarlet lake, alizarin crimson, pthalo turquoise, french ultramarine, Winsor green. The most expensive tubes here are the two cadmiums, so if you are on a budget you could try Winsor lemon, and Winsor yellow deep to replace them. I strongly recommend, however, that you avoid ‘student quality’ paints – it’s a false economy: they are padded out with wax and simply don’t contain as much pigment.

Canvas: I’ll supply something for day 1 but thereafter you’ll need to bring canvases/panels. The pros and cons of cotton/linen, panel/canvas is something we will discuss.

About 5 hogs hair bristle brushes of various sizes: they can be flats, rounds, or filberts

Dippers (the little pots for putting your oil/solvent in).

A palette (I recommend the disposable ones, but do get wood if you want).

Covid 19: The studio is spacious, nevertheless it will be better for everyone to wear masks, and hand gel will be provided.