Saturday morning (Feb 8th) was the final session of my 3 week short course - Loosening up with Acrylics, at Splashout art Studios. SEE HERE

The aim of this short course was for participants to get familiar with a painterly approach to using acrylic paints, so it is a suitable course for both beginners and advanced painters who are new to acrylic paints, or want to use them in a less traditional, loose, painterly way.

Lesson 1

For the first lesson I did an in-depth demonstration, talking about the method, my colour choices, using the pallet and applying the paint. I practiced this beforehand (I always do), so that I can clearly articulate the steps of the method and why I choose the colours I do and what’s important and what’s not during the painting process. As each session was 2.5 hrs long, I wanted to keep my demo to under half an hour too, which was another reason to practice what I preach.

My own studies and demo were done in my journals for the first session and participants could also work in their journals or on another suitable surface…and the first sessions results were fabulous!! I was happy.

Lesson 2

This session looked at coloured grounds, including another demo from me and a fixed study exercise as a warm up.

I can not lie I had so much fun studying for this lesson, and by the time I got to the actual lesson my demo just fell out onto the canvas, didn’t even have to think about it, such is the way of repetition, the best way to learn something.

My demos and studies for the second lesson below:

The fabulous work from the participants:

Lesson 3

The final lesson addressed the finishing touches on paintings to complete them, brush work and adding colours to the pallet as you need them. Participants could continue working on the paintings they had already started, begin a new one of their choice or paint another version of one they already painted. For my own study I painted the same pear yet again, this time with the least possible paint brush strokes…