Workshop: Painting in Oil with Brushes with Jim Morgan

Saturday, 14 December 2024

10:00am to 4:00pm

Charles Morris Hall, Tyttenhanger Green, Tyttenhanger, ST ALBANS, Hertfordshire, AL4 0RN

The hall has plenty of free parking.

Bring your lunch and a mug for drinks which will be provided.

Oil Painting with brushes - the basics

Cost: £35 without materials OR £47 with materials. You must bring your own brushes. 

If you book the workshop, you will be sent a link to two lessons which you can download. I would recommend that you watch these before the workshop as one covers the colour mixing that we will use in the workshop and the other demonstrates a 40 stroke painting so you will be familiar with the process.

In the workshop we are going to look at:

• The type of brushes that can be used for oil painting
• The surfaces you can use to paint on
• The types of paint and what difference cost/quality has on the paint
• The solvents to use for diluting paint and brush cleaning
• The mediums that can be added to oil paint, and what they help you to do with the paint, and the effects that they have on paint finish
• We are then going to paint!

We will paint on a 30x20cm panel, roughly 10x12” or A4 size. We will paint a still life subject, and to make it more exciting, we will be producing our painting using only 40 strokes! This is part of the reason for the 10x12” size.

This approach will help us to understand how to simplify and join shapes, the importance of hue and tone and how to maximise the use of dark to light and cold to warm. It also teaches us how to use solvents and mediums to extend and thin the paint to help it flow and how to be versatile in the use of our brushes, making a flat brush cover large areas as well as producing single strokes and fine finishing touches.

I will be probably be painting satsumas or tangerines in or next to a small bowl and most likely at my eye level to offer a different view point to the painting. I might paint something different on the day depending on what’s in the shop!

Please bring with you:

• Three to five pieces of fruit or vegetable of your choice
• A small bowl that you would like to put them in or next to (preferably not white)
• A cardboard box to stand your subject on to bring it up to eye level when sat at the table. If the cardboard will distract you also bring a cloth to cover the box.

It may well be that each group of tables choose to paint the same set of fruit and bowl in the centre of the table group, but from their own view point and there will be a lot of extra fruit and boxes so if you are coming to the workshop and intend to sit with friends, perhaps you can coordinate with one another so we don’t end up with too many boxes or fruits!

For the workshop we will provide the oil paint, solvent and painting surface.

Note: If you want to bring your own oil paint and surface, please bring a gesso finished mdf panel and the following colours:

• Cadmium red / Bright Red
• Alizarin Crimson
• Pthalo Blue
• Ultramarine Blue (not French Ultramarine)
• Indian Yellow
• Yellow ochre
• Titanium White

Please also bring with you:

• Paper kitchen roll, and a plastic bag/bin liner for rubbish
• Approximately 12 Cotton Rags or old towels cut into rough 12” squares
• An easel that will support the 10x12” panel while you paint, desk easels are also suitable
• A palette knife, the ones you got if you were on last years course are ideal
• Your own brushes that you use for painting in acrylics or oils. These need to be: a fairly stiff brush. Hog bristle or nylon fibres and then some softer fibre or hair/ synthetic hair for finishing strokes.
• Brushes need to be Flats, long or short, 1” /25mm and ¾”/20mm usually a No12 and a No10. (Amazon has suitable cheap brushes https://amzn.eu/d/iAbDUAY which will do the job.)
• A sketch pad and drawing tools to make preparatory drawings and notan if you choose, more importantly to log your stroke count as you paint!
• An apron or painting clothes. Pthalo blue is a dye colour and a tiny amount will go a long way!!!