Courses

This course offers an introduction to the techniques, materials, and vocabulary used in oil painting. We will focus on the still life as our subject matter. Using a limited palette, students will learn the importance of value—the main tool we have for creating the illusion of three-dimensional forms on a flat surface—and the ways light and shadow establish the contrast and contour shape of the object, as well as color harmony and the ways in which the medium of oil painting can be used. Students will also gain an understanding of warm and cool colors, composition, cropping, overlapping, and placement in the picture plane. Finally, we will cover how to prepare a work area that enables a painter to focus for extended periods of time, how to properly stage a still life, and how to paint from a photograph, which will be the final painting assignment. Students will leave the course with a solid understanding of oil painting techniques and how to start and finish a painting from life and from a photograph.