Saturday Still Life/Basic Drawing
Term 1, 2025: February 1 - April 5 (10 Weeks)
9:15am to 12:00pm
Tutor: Sally Ryan
In this class students can either work on developing solid drawing skills or on painting still-life.
Drawing students can progress from drawing basic forms to drawing our range of classical busts. Painters will work on still-life compositions, which can be created from our collection of objects or from objects brought from home.
Still life painting allows artists to develop all aspects of their training, including drawing, tone, colour, composition and more. Hamley Studio has built specialised still life/cast drawing boxes so that students can work on their pictures over a number of weeks with no disturbance to the objects or lighting.
MATERIALS
Below is our general list of materials. If you’d like to paint but you’re entirely new to it, don’t feel like you have to rush out and buy everything. It might be a good idea to just bring drawing equipment on your first day and we can discuss materials as we go.
For drawing:
- A2 size cartridge paper
- HB+2B pencil
- Kneadable eraser
For painting:
- Brushes – we recommend bringing brushes in a range of shapes and sizes. We tend to use primarily hog-hair filbert brushes. We also recommend bringing a few softer brushes for softening edges. It is also useful to have a few flat brushes, as well as some small round brushes for details. A soft fan brush can also be useful for softening edges.
*Brushes must be in good condition. In terms of brand, for the hog-hair brushes we like the Isabey Hog Series though this is not essential.
- Board/canvas
- (16x14 inch approx. or a bit larger – square shape is ok too)
- Eg: gesso board, fine weave linen (Artfix, Claessens are good) – oil or acrylic primed. Canvas sheet can be taped/pinned to board if not stretched.
- Palette Knife – Metal, not plastic
- Wooden Palette (the studio is also able to supply palettes for use during class)
- Paper towel
- Rags (old T-shirts etc. are good)
- Solvent - must be odourless and kept in a container with a lid
- Linseed oil + small container for medium
- Transfer paper, if you’d like to transfer a drawing to a canvas
- If you’d like to work straight onto canvas you may like to bring willow charcoal for the initial drawing
Paints/Colours:
- White (Titanium OR Cremnitz/Lead/Flake)
- Cad Yellow
- Yellow Ochre
- Cad Red or Vermillion
- Alizarin Crimson or Alizarin Claret
- Transparent Red Oxide (and or Burnt Sienna, Venetian Red or similar earth red colour)
- Raw Umber
- Ultramarine Blue (and or Cobalt Blue)
- Ivory Black
NB: All paint colours may be useful when painting still life so other paint colours you own can be brought along.
*I mostly use Michael Harding and Old Holland paints because they have higher levels of pigment than student quality paints. Any artist quality paints are acceptable -Windsor & Newton, Gamblin, Rembrandt etc - do not buy oil paint sets.