Simplifying Beauty: Painting the Clothed Figure
Learn to transform your approach to figurative work. Gain renewed confidence in yourself as an artist and a fresh look at your painting practice—a stepping stone for all genres.
Instructor: Bobbi Dunlop
Audience: Fine Art Painters
For Stage(s): Aspiring, Emerging
Medium: Acrylic, Oil
Not sure what stage you are? Visit our How It Works page for details.
Starts on Saturday, April 1, 2023
Apr. 1 | Apr. 8 | Apr. 15 | Apr. 22
4 sessions, 3 hrs each, every week
10am – 1pm MT
$163.00
Note: Price in $USD
Out of stock
Course Description
Join me in this exciting workshop where, in a direct approach to painting from photos, we will pay close attention to significant concepts like light and paint quality, while exploring abstract design possibilities (composition).
Keeping things simple is what I like to do—simple, logical, and joyful! We’ll stay true to important fundamentals as you gain confidence in yourself to pull it all together and portray your subject convincingly.In this 4-week course, we’ll discuss materials, photographing your model, working from photographs, and painting from a concept-based idea.
We’ll start each session with a critique of your work, and I will do an oil painting demonstration explaining my process (feel free to paint along if you like). You’ll receive homework, which we’ll critique the following week.
I’ll share with you all I can from my many years as a professional artist and instructor.This course is suitable for artists with a genuine desire to see the beauty in painting the figure—beginner to advanced level.
Students will paint from photos and are encouraged to work from their own references for homework.
All demos will be done in oil.
Supply List
- Professional grade oil paints (or acrylic)
- Quality painting surface: canvas or panels
- Mediums of your choice: gel medium, liquid, extender mediums for acrylics, etc.
- Natural hogs bristle brushes (I use filberts #2 and #4 for oil, synthetic bristles for acrylic painters
- Proper large palette: Sta-Wet palette for acrylic painters (plus extenders)
- Metal palette knife: 3 inches long, trowel shape
- A sense of humour: painting is hard work!
Instructor Bio
Childhood art creation opened a world that I happily took on as my personal identity. My parents lovingly encouraged my early efforts. Then it was my husband and children who supported and cheered my every advance. Each chapter of my life has brought renewed and abundant painterly richness for me as an artist.
At times we are fortunate enough to have a profound influence come into our lives at pivotal moments. For me, that authority was the masterful American artist, David A. Leffel whose philosophy about art and life has been a significant force in my artistic journey. Leffel’s profound words, “you learn about life as you learn to paint and you learn to paint as you learn about life” have long resonated with me.
Ultimately, painting is about life and how uniquely one sees it. It’s about “the pursuit of knowledge” … not about technique or formulas.
I believe that it is about beauty and when one looks for beauty, it will be clearly observed. Each time I begin a new painting, I look for innate beauty.
“Processes” have always fascinated me … how they intrinsically connect my work. As I have matured as an artist, this idea has become increasingly more important: the quality of the surfaces I choose to paint on, often hand-made; the lovely marks my brushes make; the luscious quality of the paint as I sculpt with my brush. All of these are processes that connect me more deeply to my work and bring a joy to my daily practice of painting.
I have been drawn to and inspired by the methods of the masters before me … the biggest influences being Rembrandt, Mancini, Sargent, Zorn, Repin, and Fechin to name a few.
Unwaveringly, the Glory of my Creator has always been the main driver in my work and gives me vital balance. It’s to this spirituality that I am so grateful and that I owe every insight and breakthrough I am inspired to enjoy in my studio.
