The human figure is probably one of the first subject that we humans have been depicting since we started smearing the interior of caves with charcoal and other pigments, tenth of thousands of years ago.

Let’s keep this tradition (or maybe obsession) going, with this 6-session, online course dedicated to some of the fundamental oil painting techniques for figurative artists.

Each 3 hour session will be dedicated to a specific exercise designed to improve your overall figure drawing and painting technique: measuring, tonal study, posterization. We will practice direct and indirect painting, color mixing and color theory, glazing, reduction technique, limited palette and extended palette and more.

We will be working from photographs of models and from master’s drawings and paintings, appreciating a variety of painting styles and work toward developing a personal one.

This course is part of a series of courses dedicated to painting the Figure and the Portrait in oil and it is open to all levels.

Materials

Paint: alizarine crimson, cadmium red medium ultramarine blue, cobalt blue cadmium

• yellow lemon, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, black, white.
• A wooden, plastic, or disposable palette. If you buy a wooden palette, make sure it is treated with a few layers of linseed oil to prevent the untreated wood to soak up the oil from the paint. I can show you how to do this in class, but you’ll need a disposable or plastic palette for the first class.
• A variety of brushes: hog and synthetic will do; Filbert or bright, #2, 6, 8, and 12 will do. You will also need a few round, synthetic brushes, #2 and 4. You can also use the colors that you already have and we will discuss about these materials in class.
• Linseed oil (refined linseed oil will suffice), Galkid or Liquin, Turpenoid or other low odor solvent
• Rags or paper towels.
• A metal cup for the medium and a palette knife.
• Canvas or canvas boards size 20”by 16”, or so.