6 Weeks of Exploring Artistic Techniques Through Colour

6 week painting and drawing workshop centred around colour. Through the 6 weeks we’ll experiment with different approaches to colour, to see how it can be used as a visual tool when creating artwork. Each session will be focused on a method e.g. limited colour and composition or monochrome colour and tone.

All abilities are very welcome to these relaxed art classes where we will be experimenting with art materials, learning and having a lot of fun

Week 1 – Intro Limited Colour

Overview of colour as a visual tool when creating artwork and looking at the colour wheel and complimentary colours.

Starter – choosing two colours and making a blended colour scale to help show how colour blends and tonal range.

Task – walk through composition - create a composition with graphite pencil from a still life ( keeping it classic -fruit and different ceramics) assembled on table and colour with 2 coloured pencils creating a limited colour piece.

Week 2 – Hot and Cold Colours

Assemble another still life – hill walking themed. Overview about warm and cold colours – warm colours advance and cold colours recede ( great for landscapes) helps create mood and atmosphere. Limited colouralso helps with learning tone .

Starter – demonstrating the cool and warm variations of colour with different paint tubes and colour wheels.

Task – Create a walking boot line drawing. Then with a ruler draw a line through the composition. One half paint with cold colours and other half with warm colours

Week 3 – Black and White tonal collage

This session will be looking at absence of colour and focusing on tone. Working in greyscale helps understanding tone. This is important because the following weeks we will be mixing colour.

Starter – painting tonal paper from lightest grey to black

Task – bring in a photo of a landscape and with tonal paper created we will be collaging black and white landscapes

Week 4 – Composition and tonal underpainting

This session is the 1 st part of 2 sections of one painting. People attending workshop will bring in own items to make a still life. We will be looking at composition and how to create an effective composition and how effective underpainting is before layering colour

Starter – arrange items in different arrangements until they are in a satisfying composition. I will give an overview of what components and leading lines make up a effective composition. Then everyone will take a photo of their composition so we don’t forget them

Task – create a line drawing of composition. Mix a neutral earthy thin paint and paint shaded areas of composition to make a underpainting. An underpainting is the plan of action for tone before adding colour on top. It also adds a richness and more depth to your final painting.

Week 5 - Acrylic colour mixing and painting composition

Recapping of colour with warm and cool tones and learning how to mix black and where to start when 1 st applying colour to painting

Starter – have a go at mixing black, then add with white to make it lighter. Then pick a colour you see in your composition and do the same

Task – paint composition

Week 6 – Colour in pattern and printing

This session we will be creating a two layer Ogee pattern. To start the process we will be abstracting and simplifying resources and making them into a pattern for printing. I will also give an overview of block printing and what an ogee pattern is. Another focus will be to see how colour interacts with each other when layered rather than mixed and what order is best for layering colours for printing

Starter – abstracting and simplifying initial resource to make a funky design and trace over ogee shape

Task – create one layer of the ogee repeat pattern by repeat block printing then draw 2nd layer design on ogee and repeat block printing 2nd layer.

Artist Bio

Hi I’m Niamh, a freelance illustrator and art tutor based in Workington and Edinburgh. My work is influenced by the great outdoors, local folklore, a sense of adventure and is injected with a little humour. I also like to evoke movement and energy into my work, experimenting with pencil line, paint, colour mixing and printing techniques.

My background is in Children’s Book Illustration where I achieved a Masters at Cambridge School of Art. I developed some very valuable skills during my Masters in observational drawing, colour theory, experimenting with materials and overall knowledge about visual elements.

As well as teaching, you can also find me at local markets in Cumbria and Scotland
selling greetings cards, prints and children’s picturebooks which I have written and
illustrated.

Website : niamh-illustration.squarespace.com
Instagram : @niamhillustration