Constructing a Landscape Painting

Course Dates: 8^th- 10^th September  2025 (Monday - Wednesday )

A 3 day course during which you will ‘construct’ up to three large (A1+) paintings Heavy duty paper, using quick drawings and paintings made from nature through a variety of approaches, as a your visual resource. We will work in an outside space, weather permitting, a nearby wood on the first day. You will gather visual material, working first in black and white, and then progressing to colour. Making a series of quick drawings and paintings on paper, recording interesting forms, light and shadows, perhaps getting in quite close and intimate with the woodland undergrowth rather than recording the overall vista. This accumulated visual information will then be used as the starting materials and basis with which to embark on the larger paintings back at the studio on days 2 and 3.You will use these as both a resource to work from and as materials that may be directly employed as part of your larger paintings in a collage capacity. You will be experimenting with a whole variety of painting processes, including- collage, experimental mark making, glazing, and paint transfer methods.

The intention of the course will be to look at ways in which painting/collage methods can be used to make something that constructs a space or spaces within a painting, capturing an essence of a place rather than creating an illusionistic ‘view, of it. We will explore the idea of a painting being something that can both evoke the feel, or atmosphere of a place without trying to depict it in a literal way, whilst also trying to make something that functions as a self-contained thing in its own right. The idea of its existence justified by its own internal ‘visual poetry’. You will be encouraged to think about painting in these terms during the course. The 2 or 3 large paintings will be worked on simultaneously in order to avoid the idea of ‘a final finished piece’ to ensure experimentation is not hindered by preciousness in the later stages. The purpose of the course, is to explore paintings potential through these processes, and the exciting possibilities they offer.

See Course Details for further information