Beginning Painting: Opaque Media

Painting is a way to make an image that can be rich, enjoyable, and surprisingly real. Through working with paint you can explore how things look, or experiment with color and brushwork to express your thoughts or feelings, or you can combine these pursuits as you see fit. As a process, painting engages mind and body together and can be deeply satisfying.

This class will introduce fundamental practices and concepts in working with opaque painting media. Opaque paint media involve the use of white to lighten colors, allowing for a great deal of flexibility in image making, since you can both lighten and darken colors at will. Oil or acrylic are recommended for this class, and working with gouache is also an option. We will compare and discuss these media on the first day of class.

Our work in class will be based in direct observation, and will emphasize patient repetition of step-by-step process. We will learn about the paints, brushes, and other materials we will be using, then explore paint application and study color and value relationship. Then for the rest of the class we will make paintings from direct observation of still life setups, aiming for simplified, accurate value and color relationships while repeating effective painting practices. Our first still life painting will be done monochromatically, in one color, with attention paid to both the positive and negative value shapes that we see in the still life, a concept that we will discuss in class. We will then move on to mixing simplified areas of color from direct observation, and begin to consider color temperature and the roles the color of light and local color have in making up the world we see and paint.

Prerequisite (recommended): This is a process-oriented class requiring or building patience. Simple procedures will be introduced, and time will be allowed on an individual basis for building familiarity with these procedures. To get the most out of this class, it is recommended that students will have taken a beginner level drawing class and ideally Drawing: Light and Shade with the Center for Lifelong Learning, or equivalent skills and experience.

Supplies: No supplies are required for the first day of class. Painting supplies lists will be provided for subsequent classes during our first class meeting.