Oil Painting for the Serious Beginner

Do you have some experience in pencil drawing, water colours or acrylics and would you like to try oil painting? Or perhaps you're finding oil painting complex and confusing and your first attempts haven't turned out the way you hoped? Then this is the course for you.

In this three day course, Ben Laughton Smith will take you through the basics of oil painting. You'll learn the technicalities - about brushes, mediums, solvents and paints - but you'll also learn the fundamentals on which all painting (and drawing) rests. You'll learn about:

• Drawing (getting the right patches of paint in the right place)
• Values (making sure the patches are light or dark enough)
• Edges (how the patches of paint sit next to each other and blend)
• Colours, and how to mix them

The course will be based around a series of short and longer still-life exercises, starting with a black and white study of a simple object and finishing with a colour study of an apple or pear.



DAY 1

• Introductions, course outline, health and safety, studio facilities
• Materials: brushes, mediums, solvents, paints
• Outline of painting procedure (imprimatura, sketching in shapes, background, shadow shape, painting the lights
• Set up first project
• Grisaille value painting simple object (in black, white and raw umber)
• Looking after your brushes - how to clean and store them

DAY 2

• Continuation of grisaille painting
• Complete grisaille painting - critiques of this
• Set up second (colour) project
• Discussion about colour theory and colour mixing
• Recap of painting procedure
• Begin blocking in colour study of simple object
• Individual help in mixing colours for this study

DAY 3

• Painting simple object in colour
• Individual critiques
• Suggestions for further study
• Clear up and depart

By the end, you won't be an expert but you will have taken your first steps, the path forward will be clearer, and you'll have the confidence to carry on your journey.

This course is taught by Ben Laughton Smith. Ben is a British artist, born in the Cotswolds and living in West Sussex. He studied at the Sarum Studio (under Nicholas Beer, formerly the senior tutor at the Charles H Cecil Studio, Florence) and at the London Atelier of Representational Art. In 2016 the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust awarded him the Siegmund Warburg Scholarship to continue his studies in painting.

Ben has exhibited nationally, and his work is in private collections across England. Ben places a strong emphasis on draftsmanship and craft: one of the reasons he was recently featured in the book 'A Celebration of British Craftsmanship'. Ben is an experienced, patient and dedicated teacher. You can find out more about him on his web site.

This course has a maximum of 11 participants.

You can find the materials list for this course here. If you have any questions, please see our frequently asked questions or contact us. You can also sign up to our mailing list.