6-week art fundamentals course with Jennifer De Goust

Week 1 — Composition: Seeing and Designing the Image

Focus
How to organise shapes so the painting works before colour or detail.

The focus of the workshop will be:
Understanding what composition represents
Why we use it
The various compositional styles
The techniques of composition
Using a viewfinder to identify the focus of the composition
Allowing the best composition style to emerge rather than be imposed

Key Concepts
Focal point and visual hierarchy
Identifying the focal point using a viewfinder
Analysing the image to identify the shapes
Planning the image in quick sketches
Cropping and simplifying from reference

Hands-On
Refer to a reference (cropped and printed viewfinder image).
Create three possible compositional views and print them.
Sketch each view.
Determine the compositional style to be used (may be more than one).
Compose the picture (approximately B5 size).
Complete one small composition study.

NB: We will be working from photos and referring to selected images. I will/can supply one landscape, one botanical and one portrait. Students will practise using the viewfinder to determine what composition works best.

Outcome
Students leave knowing how to design a painting rather than copy a photo.

Week 2 — Values: The Backbone of Every Painting

Focus
Values first. Colour second.

Key Concepts
Understanding values through:
Value scale (light, mid, dark)
High key vs low key
Value contrast (values within hues create contrast)

Hands-On
Create a five to seven step value scale.
Analyse the value scale in a reference.
Use the colour wheel to develop basic value understanding (for example, what value is green).
Refer to the colour wheel for colour selection (analogous or complementary), noting that value determines hue and saturation.
Complete a black and white or monochrome painting (notan technique).
Use a camera phone to identify values.
Use a camera phone to check value scale accuracy.

Optional
Paint the same subject in two value structures (soft versus dramatic).

Outcome
Students understand why paintings fail even when colours look right.
Students recognise the effect of ground colours and surrounding colours and understand that values are integral to this effect.

Week 3 — Colour Theory
(Resource: Josef Albers’ Interaction of Colour)

Focus
Colour that supports the painting rather than fights it.
Understanding hue, value, contrast and saturation and how these affect composition.

Key Concepts
Hue, value, contrast and saturation defined and explored through exercises.
Warm versus cool colour relationships.
Complementary and analogous schemes.
Limited palettes for harmony.
Analysis of other artists’ work.
Creating work based on colour relativity rather than rigid rules.

Hands-On
Build a personal colour wheel (discussion around purpose and use).
Understand how to use the colour wheel.
Identify values on the colour wheel.
Check materials and determine the values of pastels, paints and other media.

Brief introduction to colour mixing:
Warm and cool versions of primaries.
Big brush and small brush techniques.
Wet surface and dry surface techniques.
Quick in and quick out application.

Wet on wet: how it works, when it does not work, and which palettes support it (for example analogous rather than complementary).
Wet on dry: freedom of application, scumbling for depth and texture, glazing.
Creating neutrals through complementary palettes.

Complete a small painting using a three to four colour palette. Colour selection will depend on technique and intended effect.

Outcome
Students stop over-mixing and begin choosing colour with intent.
Students understand how colours interact and why.

Week 4 — Colour Choice and Mood

Focus
Using colour to say something, not just describe.

Key Concepts
Emotional impact of colour.

Questions to explore:
What do you want to say with this piece?
What textures will you use (impasto or smooth)?
What brush techniques will you use?
What are you trying to express?
What is the reference telling you?
Are you changing the reference or staying with it?

Natural colour (neutrals) versus expressive colour (Fauvist or Matisse palette).
Muted versus saturated palettes (Paul Klee).
Colour dominance and restraint (Matisse, Picasso, Miró, Kandinsky, Monet).

Hands-On
Paint the same subject twice with different moods.
Create a colour map before painting (a simple colour plan on a preliminary sketch).
Experiment with pushing or muting colour.

Outcome
Students gain confidence to move beyond local colour.
Students understand why colours are chosen and why they work or fail (value mix).
Students begin identifying their own palette and how to expand it.
Students learn to use colour to express energy and intent without rigid rules, supported by Josef Albers’ work.

Week 5 — Creating Depth and Space

This refers to the use of value, shading and texture in art.

Focus
Making flat surfaces feel spacious and believable.

Key Concepts
Foreground, middle ground and background.
Relationship to compositional styles such as golden mean, horizontal and S-curve.
Atmospheric perspective (hue and value shifts).
Edge control (soft versus sharp).
Compositional tools including scale, overlap, crop, rotate, focal point size and off-centering.

Hands-On
Depth exercises using simple shapes.
Shapes and shading exercises.
Introduction to compositional techniques as appropriate to the subject.
Landscape or interior study.
Use value and colour shifts to create depth.

Outcome
Students understand that depth is not simply detail in the foreground.
Students understand that depth is created through value, shading, composition and style (for example Matisse’s flatness versus Van Gogh’s depth).

Week 6 — Brushwork, Simplification and Pulling It Together

Focus
How paintings come alive through mark-making and restraint.

Key Concepts
Big shapes before detail, especially in preliminary stages.
Brush economy, meaning intentional and efficient mark-making.
Hard versus lost edges.
When to stop.
Knowing when a piece is finished.
Stepping away from the composition.

Hands-On
Timed painting exercises.
Timed sketching exercises for future reference use.
One resolved painting using composition, value and colour planning.
Group reflection and critique.

Outcome
Students integrate composition, value, colour and technique into a confident, painterly approach.