Easter Courses 2012
Week 1: 26th - 30th March
Painting a HeadIshbel Myserscough and James Lloyd
10am-5pm
Book now £325
A unique opportunity to work with two of the UK’s leading portrait artists, both previous winners of the BP Portrait Award. Students will be encouraged to approach the course without any preconceived ideas of style or technique. Using their particular knowledge and experience, the tutors will engage students to discover a fascination for the subject,
which will be encouraged and facilitated. Working from the portrait model, students will have the opportunity to work on both a two and three day pose.
Week 2: 16th - 20th April
Life Painting
Andy Pankhurst
10am-5pm
Book now £325
A rare opportunity to paint from the life model in a sustained pose for the whole duration of the week. Working with colour, the course will focus particularly on the concepts of painting from perception. Suitable for all levels with one to one tuition given
Painting Materials Explained:
19th Century Portrait Palette
Pip Seymour
10am-5pm
Book now £370
An intense week of preparation of raw materials for painting, to include canvas stretching and priming, choosing oil
colours and a practical workshop for hand-making oil colours and oil painting mediums. The hand-made materials will
then be used to create a series of portrait studies from the model, working with a palette of 19th century colours.
*Specialist materials will be provided for this course including canvases, paints and historic pigments and glaze
mediums.
for a week.
Summer School 2012
Week 1: 2nd - 6th July
Painting a HeadSusan Wilson
10am-5pm
Book now £325
A painting class in which students will explore painting the portrait. Students will have the rare opportunity to paint from the same sitter for the duration of the week.
“Velasquez imbued his sitters with a magical veracity, a quality of momentariness and a spiritual presence that Ortega Y Gasset described as “phantom-like”. By taking his subject and
transforming it impressionistically into a mass of insubstantial brushstrokes which Quevedo termed “distant blobs” which from a distance became truth, not appearance, Velasquez achieved
a configuration within the portrait where all that really mattered was the immediate reality of the person portrayed.”
-Alfonso E Perez Sanchez “Velasquez and the Baroque Portrait”
In this intensive week of painting, students will aim to capture the personality of the model working from observation. Help will be given with mixing and use of paint and composition, but most of all the aim is to make the painted head have life. All levels of ability welcome.
Week 2: 9th - 13th July
Summer Life Painting
Andy Pankhurst
10am-5pm
Book now £325
“Painting is not the slavish copying of an object but the grasping of a harmony between several interactions…a powerful organising mind is the best aid to sensation in the realisation of a work of art.”
Cézanne’s statement evokes the creative spirit and philosophy of the course. Working directly from a life model, a pose will be set for the duration of the week, giving students the opportunity for sustained perceptual concentration. All levels including beginners encouraged with individual one-to-one tuition.
Week 3: 16th - 20th July
Fabric and Form: Painting the Kimono
Peter Kuhfeld
10am-5pm
Book now £325
A life painting course exploring the relationship of the life model with the kimono. Students will consider how the human figure, with its curves and overall structure, interrelates with the design of the kimono, from the pattern printed on the fabric to its geometric form. The emphasis will be on colour, design, composition and the fusion of the figure with this classic robe.
Week 4: 23rd - 27th July
Painting Materials Explained
Pip Seymour
10am-5pm
Book now £370
An intense week of preparation of raw materials for painting, to include canvas stretching and priming; choosing oil colours and a practical workshop for hand-making oil colours and oil painting mediums. The hand-made materials will then be used to create a series of portrait studies from the model, working in the manner of 18th century portrait painters such as Romney and Reynolds.
*Specialist materials will be provided for this course including canvases, paints and historic pigments and glaze mediums.
Painting in the Park
Francis Hoyland
10am-5pm
Book now £325
“The rich brown-umber hue the oaks unfold
When spring’s young sunshine bathes their trunks in gold,
So rich, so beautiful, so past the power
Of words to paint--my heart aches for the dower
The pencil gives to soften and infuse
This brown luxuriance of unfolding hues...”
-John Clare
Students will draw the clothed model amongst the trees of Kensington Gardens, later transfiguring these drawings into paintings in the studio. Trees have grown into many poems and
stories, remaining a continuous source of inspiration for painters and writers. For instance, Hopkins’ Binsey Poplars and Dante’s Wood of the Suicide. So find a short literary source
that you like or have written yourself and bring it along. Anything can happen – just painting a tree from nature can be enough, or else something quite unexpected may germinate and
grow – let’s see.