Painting The Figure in the Landscape

Course Dates: 19^th- 21^st May  2025 (Monday – Wednesday)

There is an idea that when we view a landscape painting without a human figure we imaginatively project ourselves into the painted space. And so the work becomes about our relationship with the landscape and whoever or whatever created it. If we put a figure in it the whole dynamic changes, now we wonder what the figure is thinking, doing, what is their relationship with their surroundings and what is ours to them. No small thing! In Freidrich’s ‘Monk by the Sea’ don’t we wonder what the monk thinking about?

On this three day practical painting course we will be exploring this fundamental figure ground relationship. Looking at how paint becomes light and form and how the figure can emerge or dissolve into its surroundings and how this unstable visual relationship brings changes in reading and understanding.

You will be working predominantly from your own photographs using acrylic paint on paper. Composition, colour, material handling and the role of tonality in creating light and mood will be a major part of the course as will the twice daily slideshows exploring the work of historical and contemporary artists from Casper David Friedrich and Andrew Wyeth to Cecily Brown, Anna Bjerger and Hurvin Anderson.

See Course Details for further information