An Urban Scene in Oil

Make it come alive from a photo reference

In this challenging, two-day course, we paint an urban scene based on a photo we brought along. Course participants have already considered and chosen beforehand whether they want to tackle a rather empty street view or whether they want to venture into a busy scene with cars and/or people. We look at the photo templates, determine the vanishing points (s) they contain, quickly summarize the laws of perspective and work directly onto the canvas after a simple sketch.

I'm going to do a quick painting demo. After that, everyone works on their own image. I provide individual support to each course participant in order to achieve a good, individual result.

Suitable for beginners and advanced users





Material: 

Painting surface: canvas stretched on stretcher frame or cardboard approximately 40 x 30 or even larger



Oil paints: Preferably your own preferred palette

My recommendation:

ultramarine blue, pthalo blue
, medium red, e.g. permanent red, cadmium red medium
, “bluish” red, e.g. Alizarin Crimson/ Crimson/ Madder
, a light yellow, such as cadmium yellow
, titanium white (possibly zinc white added)

I also like to use burnt sienna containing the pigment PR 101 together with ultramarine for gray mixtures, as they often occur in the city. 
 They are available from Winton or from Daler Rowney



Painting medium: according to personal preferences, including pure oil 


Brush: according to personal preferences, I recommend flat brushes


Palette for mixing the paint, a simple wooden plate


Palette knife or painting spatula in two sizes


Paper towel and Shellsol
 


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