4 week watercolour painting course with Gail Astbury

29 April & 6 May

In 14th century Siena, artists were developing a new way of painting. They painted with a drama that no one had seen before. Faces show emotion. Bodies move in space. Stories flow across panels in beautifully coloured scenes.
We will be taking sections from the works in the
exhibition, such as drapery, scenery, or individual faces, still lives etc. to develop our techniques.
Wk. 1 How to create luminosity with watercolour
Wk. 2 How to use lustres, gold and/or gouache to add shimmering effects and highlights to a watercolour.

13 & 20 May

Jumping forward 700 years we meet a young painter from Los Angeles who is still concerned with figures in a landscape. He paints from the heart with no less emotion than the Italian masters of old, but what has changed? We will explore his connections to old master painters and his contemporary leaps into the unknown.
Wk. 3 Exploring the compositional devises used in Noah’s work. Then, choosing and sketching out our own backyards and how to represent or position our family and friends.
Wk. 4 Looking at Noah’s works on paper techniques. Davis preferred collage as a method of working on paper. He was constantly tearing pages from books and magazines, combining these found images and others in formally inventive ways and playfully adding his own line drawings on top.