Life drawing with oil paint
Five-week practical evening course
18 June 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm25 June 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm2 July 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm9 July 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm16 July 2018 6.30 - 9.30pm
The Clore Learning Centre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£540. Includes all materials, light refreshments on arrival and a drinks reception at the end of the final session.
Terms and conditions
This oil painting course focuses on the foundations of picture-making through the exploration of formal concepts including proportion, tone and form, temperature, composition and space, and colour itself.
It is not unusual for the concept of drawing or painting to be perceived as separate entities. We often associate drawing with the use of an array of media such as pencils, charcoal, pens and ink, but not painting which might be associated with watercolours, acrylic or oil paints. In fact, painting and drawing are closely related and for many artists, to paint is to draw. This course will explore in detail the relationship between painting and drawing, with particular reference to techniques for drawing with paint, which has informed artists throughout time, and can be a useful part of the creative process.
Since the Renaissance, artists have not only made figurative and compositional drawings on paper aimed towards designing a major larger painted work, they also produce painted studies: drawings with paint. These studies, most often smaller than the intended finished piece, are often painted with a very limited range of pigments chosen by the artist for their palette.
Towards the end of the 16th and during the first half of the 17th century, artists such as Rubens and Van Dyck would work in this way, preferring to use either just black and white, or with an inclusion of possibly a limited selection of warm earth pigments such as brown of burnt sienna or umber, yellow and red natural iron oxide (ochre). This practice enabled them to focus and explore pictorial possibilities within their compositional designs in a more immediate way regarding; proportions, chiaroscuro (tones of lights and darks), temperature contrasts of warm and cool values that can help, among other things, the sensation of a perceived three-dimensional space. Rubens would then variably continue his investigations further with painting a colour study by adding extra colours from the spectrum like lapis lazuli (today’s equivalent is French Ultramarine Blue), with other reds, yellows and greens.
This course explores how this rich tradition in drawing with painting influences ideas of picture-making and how it has continued to be a fertile way of exploring pictorial and representational concerns. The colour studies that the Post-Impressionist George Seurat made on small un-primed wooden panels made in preparation for his famous large magisterial figurative compositional paintings are one such example from the 20th century.
This exciting and dynamic techniques and ideas-based oil painting course runs over five consecutive weeks under the guidance of painter and expert tutor Andy Pankhurst, with participants working directly from different life models and poses each week in order to explore both painting and drawing with paint.
This course runs on Monday evenings, from the 18 June – 16 July, from 6.30pm-9.30pm
About the course
Participants will create weekly painting studies combining a variation of traditional, formal and conceptual aspects together with practical techniques, working perceptually from a variety of life models, both male and female.
Week 1 – Proportion (monochrome palette of black and white – a grisaille)
Week 2 – Tone and form (monochrome palette of black and white)
Week 3 – Temperature (limited palette of black, white, yellow ochre and venetian red)
Week 4 – Composition and space (the limited palette)
Week 5 – Introducing colour (the basic primary palette of reds, yellows and blues with white)
This course is suitable for all levels, preferably with some prior experience of drawing, painting or creative practice in general.
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 from perception and direct observation
• You would like a new perspective in your approach to life painting
• You would like to develop your knowledge and skills of working with oil paint
• You would like the opportunity to develop your skills and ideas in a small group setting and in the Royal Academy's practical Learning Studio
• You have no prior experience of life painting but an interest in the history, theory and practice of art more widely
Minimum age 18
The number of participants is strictly limited to enable detailed feedback from the course tutor.
£540
Mondays 18, 25 June, 2, 9, 16 July 2018
6.30-9.30pm for each session
Includes:
• An introduction to the Academy with particular reference to relevant works in the Collection
• All specialist practical materials
• Light refreshments upon arrival
• A drinks reception at the end of the final session
• A certificate of participation upon course completion
About the tutor
Andy Pankhurst
Upon graduation from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1992, Andy Pankhurst had won first prize for the Windsor and Newton Young Artist’s Award, and was represented by leading gallery Anthony Mould Contemporary Ltd.
In the same year, he was awarded the Richard Ford Scholarship through the Royal Academy, with which he travelled to Spain to study the old masters within the Prado. He subsequently became a committee member of the award himself in 2003, nominated by Christopher Le Brun PRA, and alongside former Keeper of the Royal Academy, Maurice Cockrill RA (1936-2013). Through the Boise Travel Scholarship, he later lived in the Veneto area of Italy, studying primarily Giotto and the Venetian School.
As a figurative painter, Andy Pankhurst is known as an artist and teacher working from the life model. Andy has work represented in various public, corporate and private collections and museums in the UK and USA. Andy currently exhibits with Browse and Darby in London, with his most recent show of paintings and drawings in 2014. He is the co-author with Lucinda Hawksley of the book What Makes Great Art, published in 2012 by Apple Press.
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.