Painting Exploration

Find your own painting style.

Develop your own unique style while exploring the tools and techniques to make a great painting from start to finish. Practice the elements of art and design, composition, color theory, and brushwork, while drawing inspiration from artists around the world to learn new approaches to creativity  and expressing emotions with paint. Techniques like priming, layering, glazing, and varnishing will be demonstrated. Students will walk away with a finished painting as well as confidence to continue to explore the medium. All ability levels  benefit from this class.

Materials:

– Sketchbook 

– Pencils 

– Eraser 

– A pad of Canvas paper (Oleo, thick watercolor paper, or canva paper is fine)

– Oil Paints / Acrylic Paints

Kits are fine, but if you choose to purchase individual tubes of color, please include these: 

• Titanium white 
• Ivory black 
• Cadmium Red 
• Permanent Alizarin Crimson 
• Ultramarine Blue 
• Phthalo Blue 
• Cadmium Yellow 
• Lemon Yellow 

– Optional additional colors Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber 

– Firm Bristle Paint Brushes Please select one or two small, medium, and large round brushes, as well as flathead brushes

-Palette A palette is any surface on which you can mix your paint. I prefer to use a covered palette which preserves paint for longer use. You want a palette big enough to mix all your colors on 

– Odorless Gamsol, Turpenoid, or other odorless mineral spirits

-Linseed Oil Linseed oil increases the transparency of paint as well as the fluidity, while maintaining the paint’s oil base. 

-Glass Jar To hold our solvent. You may want to purchase one with a metal coil inside to help clean brushes. Bring an extra empty, sealable jam jar as well. 

-Palette Knife If you prefer to mix your colors with brushes, that is fine.

-Rags Used for cleaning/drying brushes 

–Painting Clothes These are clothes you don’t mind getting paint on 

–Canvas Canvas boards are very economical but you may want to choose a stretched canvas. The stretched canvases one can purchase at art stores are already primed and ready to paint on. If you are stretching your own canvas, you will need to prime your surface with an acrylic gesso.  Bring at least one of a smaller dimension, for example an 8” x 10” canvas board, and one larger surface, for example a 16” x 20” stretched canvas.