Painting | Transform the way you paint with Ash Frost

This class will transform the way you paint!  Suitable for anyone who has been painting for a while but reached a creative block, feels stale or needs some technical intervention.  In this studio-based course, work with experienced tutor and award-winning artist Ashley Frost who is known for his palette knife paintings with compositions that use light to capture a fleeting moment in time. Ashley will recommend structured exercises to help students overcome technical difficulties and creative blocks and refine their skills. Whether you work in oils, acrylics, watercolour, or mixed media, this class will give you new skills and confidence to apply to your art practice.

In this course you will refine individual style and improve foundation painting skills, build confidence to complete works ready for that next art prize you've always wanted to enter.

Note: Tutor Michael Simms will be guiding students in weeks 4 and 5 of term 4 2024.

What to expect

• Each week the class will start with a short demonstration and tutorial and then, students will be given the option to proceed with their own work or create a work based on the week's program.
• Over the course, students will learn compositional techniques to help establish ideas for new paintings from a wide range of genres which may include still life, interiors, landscape, portrait and figure studies.

What you will achieve

Students will:

• Learn to bring colour, light and energy into paintings
• Learn about composition, colour harmony and more
• Learn approaches to applying paint and mark making
• Learn about classical and modern master painters
• Understand the methods that can move a painting from representation to abstraction
• Learn to work from a range of sources including drawings, oil sketches and black and white photographs

Material List

• Pencil/charcoal and some paper or an A4 sketchbook
• Palette – A4 or A3 size clear perspex, traditional timber palette or disposable. (Avoid using plates as a palette)
• Rags (lots!), Masking tape, about 4 jumbo bulldog clips
• Brushes (variety of sizes with a few bigger ones as well as small/thin ones for details)
• Palette knives, at least two.
• For supports: it's a good idea to have a range of boards or canvases from as small as 20cm up to 60cm.
• 3-4 sheets of white or off white Stonehenge paper 56x76cm
• Reference material: Bring a variety of pictures/photos/drawings of landscapes and interiors that inspire you – plus any sketches you may have done.
• Paints: Students may use acrylic or oil paints only. Please use student quality or better paints.
• Clean up: Use soap and some heavy-duty scourers. 
• Optional: A colour wheel and Greyscale chart

The following list will provide you with the essential colours in oil or acrylic

• Warm red (In order of preference 1. Cadmium Red, or, Vermillion or Spectrum Red );
• Cool Red (1. Quixonachrome Magenta or 2.Alizarin Crimson);
• Cool Blue (1. Cobalt Teal or 2. Cerulean Blue or 3. Tasman Blue)
• Warm Blue (1. Ultramarine Blue or 2. Cobalt Blue);
• Cool Yellow (1. Lemon Yellow or Cadmium Yellow Light);
• Warm Yellow (1. Yellow Ochre, 2. Cadmium Yellow Deep or 3. Spectrum Yellow,)
• Titanium White
• Raw Umber or Burnt Umber, either one is fine. We mix this with your blue to make a black.

The following list will provide you with some extra colours that are worth buying

• An additional white - Zinc White
• Some additional earth colours including Transparent Red Oxide, Burnt Sienna
• Some additional secondary colours including Phthalo Green or Viridian green, Quixonachrome Violet or Spectrum Violet, Cadmium Orange or spectrum orange

If working in acrylics

• Acrylic mediums: Glaze painting medium, impasto medium, crackle medium

If working in oils

• Oil mediums: Gamsol solvent, linseed oil and liquin. Do not bring any other mediums as these may release airborne toxins
• Oil painters should wear disposable gloves, and have some paper towels and a couple of lidded jars to recycle solvent.

About studio classes

Our class sizes are small, ensuring you receive the individual tuition you need. We have a maximum of 12 students per class.

Unless otherwise noted, prices *exclude* art materials. Click here to see a list of local art supply retailers.

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