Sustainable Painting with Watercolours

Course overview

The topic for this four (4) week course is 'Carrot Characters'.

Watercolour art dates from the Stone Age when early man first painted pictures of animals and humans on cave walls using charcoal, ochre and other natural pigments blended with water.

This course creates a relaxed environment for exploring ways we can design with awareness and consideration to our environment, designing with sustainable materials throughout. You will create and take home your own unique artwork.

Under the guidance of an experienced facilitator, you will learn all the necessary techniques to make a clever and beautiful artwork to frame.

A choice of simple visual art designs will be provided; however, you will be encouraged to allow your own signature style to shine together with your newly acquired skills.

This course has been designed with purpose; to learn, create and introduce you to techniques and skills in painting with an earth conscious focus.

You will be using sustainable recycled cotton paper and other sustainable materials (supplied) through out this four (4) week course.

Topics covered in the course include:

Basic skills acquisition

• Demonstrations: Practice making a variety of marks in a grid with different paint brushes.
• Exercise: You will learn the anatomy of different paintbrushes and discover the marks they make.

Basic skills acquisition - continued

• Demonstrations: Practice dropping different coloured paint into water using a grid.
• Exercise: You will discover how paint pigment behaves when dropped into water by following a wet-in-wet process.

Discuss visual cues, colour, materials and process

• Demonstrations: Present and discuss a variety of images to use as a template for your finished work.
• Exercise: You will consider colour, line and resonance when choosing your inspirational image.

Creating a preliminary drawing

• Demonstrations: Using the chosen image, a drawing is created and translated to watercolour paper.
• Exercise: You will create a preliminary drawing as a foundation for your finished painting.

Select colours and create swatches

• Demonstration:  Three colours are chosen and swatches created using blends of these.
• Exercise: You will choose and practice colours in swatches to create a mood reference for your finished art piece.

Create your painting

• Demonstrations:  Water is applied to the drawing and selected colours are dropped into the watered sections.
• Exercise: You will start working on your painting.

Create your painting - continued

• Demonstrations: A visual analysis of how the paint is behaving on the drawing and the overall progression of the work.
• Exercise: You will discuss the various aspects of the finished painting and add final touches to highlight your work.