Courses in specific media for improvers
Our "beginners" courses introduce students to a wide range of media and techniques. Our "improvers" courses can still be taken by beginners, but because each one concentrates on only one medium, the courses whizz through the basics and onto the more advanced aspects, which may be difficult for students who are just starting to learn art, so we recommend you have some knowledge and experience of drawing and painting before studying them.
Acrylics written by Eric Waugh (Course 106)
This course is designed to provide you with all the information and expert guidance you need to be able to start creating your own original paintings in acrylics as soon as possible.
Comprehensive and straightforward enough to be enjoyed by complete beginners, the course is also full of hints and pointers that benefit even the more experienced painter. It explains exactly how to use the medium successfully to achieve the effect you want, whatever your chosen subject.
In addition, plenty of practical advice is included on everything from preparing your paper to varnishing and mounting a finished picture.
The course comes in six sections and includes:
- the acrylic medium,
- equipment and techniques,
- starting to paint,
- still life,
- sketching and painting outdoors, sketching outdoors and painting indoors,
- creating atmosphere and movement,
- painting from a personal viewpoint,
- colour and tone – contrast and texture, cold and warm colours, use of greys, catching attention with shape and colour,
- movement and composition,
- Eric Waugh’s personal viewpoint,
- landscapes and strong contrasts,
- using the painting knife,
- abstract painting as an exercise – an introduction to abstracts, choosing the amount of abstraction, self-justifying abstract, abstracting from a group of objects or a landscape,
- variations of texture, and
- finishing touches.
Oil Painting written by Hayward Veal (Course 105)
Even if you have no drawing ability, and have never painted before, this lively and stimulating course will teach you how to use oil paints with confidence and enjoyment.
It takes as its starting point Claude Monet’s advice that when you go out to paint,
"... you should try to forget what objects you have before you – a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, there is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, its exact colour and shape, until it gives you your own impression of the scene before you."
It provides clear advice and explanation on everything from the best order in which to arrange colours on your palette to the more subtle aspects of portrait painting.
Whether you wish to be an impressionist or a painter of highly-finished pictures, the guidance and encouragement offered by this course will help you find and develop your style to your own satisfaction.
The course first takes you through the basics and includes:
- equipment, organising your palette, starting to see, experiments with paint,
- arranging a work space, viewpoints, learning to paint what’s there, experiments with tone and colour,
- optical importance, the feel-in approach, the demolition technique,
- shape, edges, dimension,
- observation, analysis, expression, positioning your viewpoint for portraiture, and
- optical noise, relativity, degree of finish, impressionism.
Before taking you further:
- more on equipment – brushes, canvas, easels, framing, varnish, wax,
- more on colour – hue, chroma, tone, mixing,
- Hayward Veal’s approach,
- more on portraits,
- impact,
- individuality, and
- perception.
Pastels written by Ernest Savage (Course 104)
This course shows beginners and more experienced amateurs alike how to master this adaptable and exciting medium. It takes you through a carefully-planned series of exercises to help you grasp the essential techniques of using pastels, at the same time progressively increasing your understanding of tone, colour, pictorial arrangement and draughtsmanship.
Fully illustrated at every stage, the course takes subjects such as still life, landscape, town and cityscapes, people, and flowers and plants to explain the effective use of particular techniques. Throughout the course you benefit from Ernest Savage’s sensitive understanding of, and infectious enthusiasm for, the medium of pastels.
The course comes in eight sections and includes:
- materials – paper, portfolio, care,
- simple drawings – pastel effects, monochrome studies, using a brush, textured paper,
- tones – tonal studies as preparatory work, hot and cold, light and dark,
- shapes and forms,
- colour and colour selection,
- composition,
- using paper as part of the picture,
- outdoor studies – towns, people, perspective, outdoor sketching for indoor work,
- flower studies, and
- mixing pastel with other media – underpainting, ink, watercolour, gouache.
Watercolour Painting written by John Blockley (Course 107)
Whether you are completely new to all forms of painting or simply wish to improve your existing watercolour technique, this course is specifically devised to provide you with all the instruction, support and encouragement you need in order to make real progress.
Skilfully combining written information with many helpful illustrations, it explains the methods, techniques and materials involved in watercolour painting in a lively and interesting way, with examples that progress in stages so that you can view the development of a piece of artwork.
Much useful advice on approaching a subject from a painter’s point of view is included, and throughout the course the well-planned exercises help you master all of the fundamental skills so that you can go on to develop your own individual style.
The course comes in seven sections and includes:
- equipment and materials – brushes, colours, paper, easel,
- the strengths and uses of watercolour,
- basic technique – using a wet medium, mixing colour, transparency, graduation, granulation, wet-in-wet, hard and soft edges,
- observation – simplifying what you see into what you paint (using landscape as an example),
- tone – light and dark, tonal scales, distance,
- drawing – drawing and colour, shape, balance, line, painting in line and wash,
- colour – colour in nature, colour juxtaposition, lighting,
- painting landscapes – light, atmosphere, skies, water, reflections, trees,
- composition – balance and pattern,
- perspective,
- city scenes – painting buildings, industrial scenes,
- figures in the landscape,
- shadows,
- interiors and still life,
- keeping a sketchbook – painting from sketches,
- mood and texture,
- developing personal vision,
- opaque watercolour – gouache, acrylics, and
- presentation – framing, mounting and exhibiting.
Companion kits of art materials
All of our art courses have a companion kit of art materials which you may buy so that you can get started on your studies straight away. Please see our art shop page for more details.
