Oil Painting Demo Fun Class at Albany Hill

My oil painting demo at Albany Hill, California, went well in April. I had a nice local area crowd show up for my outdoor demonstration of oil painting techniques and plein air methods.


I had designed the hour-long class in the Bay Area to highlight basic oil painting materials and show beginning methods for understanding oil painting. I was pleased with the curiosity and enthusiasm, as many people had tried watercolor but wanted to explore oils. A few people had experience with oil painting and were eager to go deeper.

Different oil painting set-ups, easels, and paint boxes for outdoor painting. Plus a table full of oil painting materials to show absolute beginners.

The students told me that oil painting can be intimidating because of the huge selection of materials you encounter when walking into an art store. Where to start? So I designed this class to simplify and organize the variety of painting materials, and let students experiment with different methods to see what they liked. I am a great believer in having a firm grasp of technique, so the student can then be creative and go their own way with high quality results.

Oil painting materials on location at a beautiful landscape scene, Albany Hill Park. This event was co-hosted by Friends of Albany Hill.
One brand of modern portable painting box. I present a variety of different makes and models of outdoor painting easels and boxes.

Traditional "Julian easel" and my old paint box.
I show students how painting supports can be stored inside the paint box even when wet with fresh oil paint.
I explain how I made color charts of oil paint swatches.

Topics such as how to prepare different surfaces to paint on (canvas, wooden panel, cotton rag paper), layering, drying time, which colors dry quickly and which dry slowly were discussed--to name a few. People had many, many questions, which is a good thing and shows the need for a longer class.

We will schedule more in-depth workshops of a half day and full day in the next month, and return to the area. Plus get the students themselves painting with these materials. They were eager to pick up the brushes and start making art! See my art website at https://lcunningham-art.com.

Comments

  1. 1 click dissertation reviewMay 13, 2017 at 1:34 AM

    Its showing from the images that you really had fun in your first oil painting demo class and learnt many things. The setup seems quite nice.

    ReplyDelete

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