Drawing and painting inventively
Five-week practical evening course
7 November 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm14 November 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm21 November 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm28 November 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm5 December 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm
The Life Room, RA Schools, Royal Academy of Arts
£480. Includes all materials, light refreshments and a drinks reception at the end of the final session.
Terms and conditions
Artist Emyr Williams explores inventive approaches to drawing and colour painting. Each week will present a new set of challenges that connect painting to drawing in unforeseen ways while building confidence and technique.
Drawing and painting are both highly evocative terms and can conjure up a huge variety of styles relating to line, tone, contrast, layering, texture and colour. These qualities are often taught, but can equally be developed through an individual’s own art-making practice and experimentation. Painting and drawing are seemingly traditional genres, yet can be played with and challenged to develop an artist’s personal expressiveness and unique responses.
During this course, participants will be guided to release a more creative and personal approach to their art-making by challenging assumptions about both drawing and painting. Participants will be encouraged to examine how to start a drawing or painting in inventive ways. There will be a close look at materials and their qualities, colour theory and its implications and how both primary and secondary source materials can result in experimental and exciting responses, dealing with scale, form, layering, line, tone, structure and colour.
The ambition is to make fluent, rapid responses to both disciplines, moving freely between the two, exploring how drawing and painting can inspire each other, and making drawings that both inform and react to paintings and vice versa.
Each week participants will work in both dry and wet media, using pencil, charcoal, ink and acrylic paints on both canvas and papers. The group will look at images, objects and historical works of art from different times and cultures. There will also be a guiding theme to explore in each session.
This course will take place on consecutive Wednesday evenings. Each session runs from 6.30pm to 8.30pm.
Week 1 – Wednesday 7 November
Scale and edges: the potential of drawing
Week 2 – Wednesday 14 November
Synthesis and invention: examining the dialogue between tone and colour
Week 3 – Wednesday 21 November
Colour and space: putting theory into practice
Week 4 – Wednesday 28 November
Learning from others: a look at historical works and their lessons for today
Week 5 – Wednesday 5 December
Abstraction and connections: improvising and modifying techniques
About the course
Painting and drawing both have a set of assumptions attached to them: how they should be made, the techniques that can be learned, the purpose of their ‘formal’ qualities. Yet, by developing a more questioning mindset, a greater creativity can be released.
During this course, participants will work with traditional media – pencil, charcoal, ink, acrylic paints, canvas and papers – but explore more experimental approaches to these media and their potential for visual invention and communication.
The practical work will be complemented by an informative look at abstract and figurative art and objects within wider historical and cultural contexts.
Participants are advised to bring something to carry paintings home in, as there are no storage facilities available.
Please note - Oil paint will not be used during this course.
This course is suitable for all levels, but ideally participants will have some prior experience of drawing, painting or another creative practice.
This course is for you if:
• You have some prior knowledge of drawing and/or painting and would like to extend your skills in the practice of working with both mediums.
• You would like a new perspective in your approach to drawing and/or painting.
• You have no prior experience of colour theory, but have an interest in the history, theory and practice of art-making more generally.
Minimum age 18
The number of participants is strictly limited to enable detailed feedback from the course tutor.
Price: £480
Wednesday 7 November – 5 December 2018
6.30pm – 9.30pm for each session
(five sessions in total)
Includes:
• An introduction to the RA with particular reference to works in the Collection
• All specialist practical art materials
• Course learning materials and hand-outs
• A drinks reception at the end of the final session
• A certificate of participation upon course completion
About the tutor
Emyr Williams
Emyr Williams is an abstract painter who has exhibited in the UK, Europe and North America. His work has won awards and is held in many public, corporate and private collections worldwide. He has led classes and lectured in schools, colleges and universities in the UK, Europe, the USA and Asia, including many courses and classes at the Royal Academy. Emyr also writes about art. He was a regular contributor to Abstract Critical and has written for the RA Magazine. He currently writes for Abcrit, contributes a regular feature for the specialist art website Instantloveland.com and has a new book titled Abstract Painting and Abstraction, published in 2017 by Crowood Press. For more information about Emyr and his work, visit his website here.
About the space
The Life Room
The Royal Academy’s historic Life Room sits at the heart of the RA Schools. Usually closed to the public, this unique and significant space was designed in the 1860s, when the galleries and art school first moved to Burlington Gardens.
The semi-circular seating arrangement, based on an ancient design, traces its British history back to Hogarth’s Academy in St Martin’s Lane from around 1730. Directional light is used to enhance the delineation of the model’s musculature and aid life drawing, which has been practised in this room by generations of Royal Academy artists and students.
Our courses and classes programme
Our programme of short courses and classes offers the opportunity to explore a range of subjects, led by expert tutors and practising artists.