Summer Painting Studio

You’ll spend the first two days exploring gesture, mark-making, and emotional colour to develop a personal abstract language.

From drawing to music in charcoal to completing a unique oil painting on canvas, this will inspire you to embrace spontaneity and creativity.

You’ll create an emotional colour palette through engaging collage exercises and finish with a fully realised abstract painting in oil on canvas.

During the abstract painting sessions, you will:

• develop your ability to create expressive, gestural marks that convey energy and movement
• learn how to use contrast, brushwork, and texture to build dynamic compositions in paint
• explore the emotional power of colour and how to construct a palette that reflects mood and intention
• gain confidence in translating ideas and gestures into a cohesive, abstract painting
• build a deeper understanding of abstraction as a process, from initial mark-making to a finished oil painting on canvas.

You’ll spend the next three days exploring portraiture painting and bring them to life.

You’ll learn how to capture the likeness, personality, and essence of your subject using the expressive alla prima “wet into wet” painting technique.

Beginning with charcoal sketches from life or self-portraits, you’ll sharpen your observational skills, develop your composition, learn how to mix colours that convey depth and vibrancy, and create realistic and dynamic skin tones, ensuring your portrait captures both likeness and personality.

Whether you choose to work with a live sitter, observe yourself through a mirror or work from a photograph, this course will help you create portraits that are rich with character and energy.

During these sessions, you will:

• strengthen your observational skills by working in charcoal to understand proportion and gesture
• explore techniques to arrange a compelling composition that highlights your subject’s unique personality
• learn how to take and use reference photographs effectively for continuity in your painting process
• understand how to select and paint a background that enhances your subject
• master the alla prima method to create vibrant, lifelike portraits directly on canvas
• develop your ability to mix colours for realistic and dynamic skin tones, paying attention to warm and cool colour contrasts
• gain confidence in creating expressive brushstrokes and fine details that bring your portrait to life.

By the end of the week, you will have completed a finished portrait in oils on canvas, rich in character and skilfully executed, and produced a series of abstract drawings, a black-and-white abstract painting and a final completed abstract oil painting on canvas.

With an inspiring mix of en plein air sessions and studio-based work, you’ll develop essential techniques to create stunning and atmospheric landscapes. Under the guidance of a professional landscape artist, you’ll explore composition, tone, colour, and mark-making.

You’ll paint in locations within Nottingham experiencing the light, movement, and grandeur of the natural landscape firsthand. When the weather takes a turn, you’ll return to the studio to hone your skills further using photographs you’ve taken.

You’ll learn the essential compositional rules, colour and painting techniques to achieve panoramic skies and beautiful landscapes. There will also be some exercises in line and tone using charcoal, ink and pencil.

During this week, you will:

• enjoy the unique experience of working in the rural landscape , in a variety of settings in and around Nottinghamshire
• work from a range of source material; from photographs and sketches to direct observation of the landscape (weather permitting)
• loosen up with line drawings and gain the confidence to put colours straight onto the canvas without a guide line
• learn how to maintain a level of expressive freedom in mark-making when working from photograph in the studio
• learn how to choose your palette to achieve distance and panorama
• apply and appropriately use tone, warm and cold colours in both skies and landscape
• study the rules of landscape composition such as point of focus and depth of field in order to create a beautiful artwork that flows.

By the end of this week, you will have created a series of landscape artworks, painted both outdoors and in the studio. These pieces will demonstrate your understanding of composition, tone, and colour, as well as your ability to convey the beauty and energy of the natural world.