Short Courses

Course Dates January 13th -16th 2020 (Monday - Thursday)

The overall aim of this courses is to help you to be confident, playful and intuitive with colour, using oil paints and mediums. To get to this point we will explore four areas: the primary colours and how to mix them; transparency and opacity in paint; tonal values and their relationship to mood and light; and finally, colours and their connection to our sensory experience of the world.

Course dates: February 17 - 19  (Monday - Wednesday)

Differentiating tree species, finding order in complexity, spotting the tiger in the long grass or simply gaining optical delight from rhythmical repetition – recognising pattern and getting pleasure from that recognition is something we have, for good reason, evolved to do. This 3 day practical course will explore how pattern, rhythm and repetition can be used in conjunction with colour, paint and it’s manipulation as an exciting and vibrant component in painting. It will also explore the fertile relationship between painting and textiles. We will be looking at a range of patterned textiles for inspiration as well as slideshows each morning looking at the work of historical and contemporary painters.

This is a stand alone course but can be done in conjunction with Painting and Pattern 2.

Dates - February 24 -26, 2020 (Monday - Wednesday)

Cost includes includes some specialist materials

A course designed to discover some of the wonderful possibilities of the painted surface through processes and materials. The course will involve working on a number of different grounds while exploring exciting contemporary painting techniques using specially designed brushes, syringes, squeegees, combs and mark making tools.

Course dates: March 16-18th, 2020 (Monday - Wednesday)

Date - 24 March 2020 (Tuesday)

Using a variation of scales including very large cartridge and watercolour paper we will be exploring the wonderful qualities of paper with both water based paint and drawing materials. This 1-day course will start with a talk on the importance of processes in modern painting and be designed to quickly explore the act of painting through some of these different techniques.

 Course dates: 21 - 24 April  2020 (Tuesday - Friday)

Spring is a magic time of year that moves all too fast as nature wakes up and blooms. Embrace the energy of spring with four days exploring ways of courageously handling luscious paint to create paintings that go beyond safe, traditional flower paintings. The subject is full of colour, texture and sculptural form......a gift for painting. The course will be packed with demonstrations, exercises and finished paintings to take away with you.

 Course dates: 28 April - 1 May 2020 (Tuesday - Friday)

Spring is a magic time of year that moves all too fast as nature wakes up and blooms. Embrace the energy of spring with four days exploring ways of courageously handling luscious paint to create paintings that go beyond safe, traditional flower paintings. The subject is full of colour, texture and sculptural form......a gift for painting. The course will be packed with demonstrations, exercises and finished paintings to take away with you.

Course dates: May 5-6, 2020 (Tuesday and Wednesday)

Colour is a deep and mysterious language and used correctly it can open your work up to a kaleidoscope of possibilities. During this course we will be looking at how we can use colour with a little bit of theory but mainly taking a hands on approach working applying colour and making our own discoveries.Over the 2 days we will be looking at ways in which colour can open up your own work with key lessons about pigment, light, pitch, under painting, layering, transparency, opacity and luminosity.

31 May - 2 June 2020 (Sunday - Tuesday)

The price includes materials.

Locations - Rackham Village Hall and the South Downs near Amberley - Days 1 & 2, Seawhite Studio, Partridge Green - Day 3 (Moderate level of fitness required).

These 3 days give students the opportunity to work with two artists who have devoted many years to celebrating the benefits and discipline of working 'en plein air' in the landscape. We are part of Nature, and it is always changing around us. Moving through it, touching it and allowing the weather, light and seasons to affect us has a profound effect on our work and inspiration.  With two days walking on the South Downs, gathering and collecting observations and sensations in visual and written form, this course will be a rich and rewarding investment into your own practice.  It will encourage you to take a playful and experimental approach to writing and drawing, allowing the poetic possibilities to thrive and for your response to move way beyond merely copying the view.   

Course dates: 16-18 June 2020 (Tuesday - Thursday)

Price includes large sheets of paper and some materials.

This course is aimed at delving into the experience of mark making - the fun of it and the work of it. It offers you the chance to fine tune and enrich your mark-making language for deeper personal expression.  With opportunities to extend your senses as an artist through music and body movement as well as experience the freedom of MAMMOTH mark-making, you will develop a new awareness of how marks can be both a response to a feeling and an evoker of feeling.

Working mainly on paper, you will make at least two large pieces of mark making – working with music as the inspiration.  You will also create a set of small drawings generated from phone videos made by students.  Together with music, these drawings will inspire at least one other large piece.  Students will leave the course with a restocked creative tool kit that they can use to inform and inspire further work.  Course discussions will consider the mark making of artists such as Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, Simon Carter and Cy Twombly.