I’d travelled through the Cotswolds many times before, captivated by the golden glow of the honey-coloured stone buildings, that just seemed to lend themselves to being painted.
The earthy tones of yellow ochre complimented by soft dull lilacs of wisteria-laden-branches create a really mellow colour palette, you then have crumbling walls surrounded by trees and foliage that bring in a bright sap-green colour pop…
Morning class!
If you’ve ever wanted to have a go with oils but felt the mysterious mix of Linseed Oil and Turpentine put you off, then this simple still life study is for you.
It uses just one medium mix the whole way through and I demonstrate the similarities between the techniques we’ve been using on previous acrylic paintings tutorials.
Traditional oil painting medium recipes can be complicated but it’s not essential to master it all so I’ve kept it simple so you can get painting.
Switching between acrylics and oil paint can be a smooth transition, the main difference is how you dilute the pigments.
Morning Class!
The new Venice – Light & the Landscape Impressionistic Course is now available!
I’ve developed this acrylic painting course inspired by a Venetian Sunset to help guide you through the process of moving from small-scale to large-scale acrylic paintings.
As a student visiting the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, I’d just seen Monet’s monumental Water Lily paintings and I was in awe.
The sheer scale of the pieces with thick painterly brush strokes inspired me to get back to my little studio space at home.
It was time to break out with the big canvas.
I wanted to create impressionistic landscapes and seascapes that still held the qualities of light-fall and realism that I’d seen, but maybe a little bit smaller than 40ft!
And this immersive large-scale painting experience is what many beginner artists want, it feels exciting and well….arty to create something big and expressive.
Grabbing a large decorators brush, making gestural marks on your canvas – feels invigorating, almost like a breakthrough and then…. you start to hear your inner artist voice getting overwhelmed.
You haven’t got a plan, you don’t know what the next step is so you lose you nerve…
You can read more about the course here
“I’m not getting on.”
“You have to get on.”
“I don’t, I’m not going.”
5 minutes earlier, you could have mistaken us for locals, idly chatting to a friendly looking Italian who had informed us we needed to take the Linea Arancio (Orange line) to San Marco.
The journey time? Well …it could take anywhere between 30 minutes and 1 hour. He seemed vague, but of course, why should he know details about the journey.
We’d caught a late night flight into Venice and were waiting for one of the last ‘Alliguna’ boats from the airport.
The energy started to change and people formed an orderly queue beside a man clinging precariously to the side of an extremely buoyant boat and then it dawned on us.
The small lurching vessel moored in the dock, that I had 100% assured Vanessa we wouldn’t have to go in, was indeed our transport.
And the vague Italian man … he was the Captain.
The rain lashed into the small space at the rear of the boat, tourists and suitcases packed in together and then I heard Vanessa say “Scusami, Scusami, we’ve changed our minds, we’re getting off at the Rialto Bridge”
3 stops earlier than I’d planned.
Our Venetian adventure had begun…
Growing up in Kent, a trip to Margate beach brings back memories of avoiding jellyfish, penny slot machines and overdosing on ice-cream.
As kids, we thought it was a pretty good beach.
Mainly because it meant the freedom of the Summer holidays but also because of the huge expanse of sand we could run about on.
Turner thought it was a pretty good place too, becoming a regular visitor throughout his lifetime.
For him, it was the unique quality of light in East Kent, with impressive skies and turbulent sea that inspired his works.
Morning Class!
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’d like to thank all the comments, questions and positivity that have come through the Art School blog this year.
The most rewarding thing is seeing students embrace the challenge of portraits with great enthusiasm and achieve some really fantastic results!
We’ve also broken through the 8,500,000 views on YouTube, Woohoo! so thanks for watching and more videos will be coming soon.
Have a great week,
Cheers,
Will