Brisbane Artist Classes

Classes to suit students 16+ years of age.
All levels welcome
To book message Mark Feiler on 0415 360 939, email us at [email protected] or message us on our Contact page.

Online Art Classes

Tuesday
Drawing Fundamentals
9.30- 12.30pm
Wednesday
Painting Fundamentals
10.00 - 12.00pm
Drawing Fundamentals
6.00 - 8.30pm
Thursday
Drawing Fundamentals
9.30 - 12.30pm

Studio Art Classes

Monday
Painting Fundamentals - Still Life in Oils
1.30pm - 4.00pm
(Classes conducted at www.chromestreetstudios.com)
Thursday
Painting Fundamentals - Still Life in Oils
6.30 - 8.30pm
(Classes conducted at www.chromestreetstudios.com)
Friday
Painting Fundamentals - Landscape in Oils
8.30 - 12.30pm
(Classes conducted at various places around Brisbane)

Private Classes (by appointment)

Prices

Online
Drawing Fundamentals $50 per session
Painting Fundamentals $50 per session

Studio
Painting Fundamentals $70 per session

Private classes
3 hr classes $70 per session
2 hr classes $60 per session

Classes are to be purchased as a five session pack
A five class pass must be redeemed within 2 months of purchase
No refunds

Wednesday Night Drawing Fundamentals Online

Recommended materials
A2 or A3 Sketchbook - Acid free cartridge paper
2 x 2B Pencils
1 x Kneadable Eraser (Faber-Castell)

The fundamentals component covers the principles an artist must develop throughout their lives. It is the first and most crucial step in overcoming preconceptions we may associate with the process of drawing. History has pitted some of the greatest minds to the subject of drawing; the search for creating the perfect illusion of the real world. Fortunately these masters created the perfect machine to help us solve technical problems we as artists may be presented with today. We will use these ideas to aid our poetry.

The figure drawing component provides the student with the knowledge to accurately observe proportions; to learn how to develop the structure of the figure, and to gain confidence in their drawings by having an organised process to follow. Through repetition of timed poses students develop their ability to quickly produce a successfully dynamic drawing of the figure. Students are then instructed on more advanced topics such as artistic anatomy and modelling.

The portrait drawing component explores the structure of the head. Students learn the essential proportions; how to block in shadow shapes and how to create use simple structures to help the design of the features. This component focuses on repetition and introduces the concept of planes. As the ability to understand the structure of the portrait increases a students response to drawing from reference improves and we explore more advanced topics such as drawing heads from imagination.

Thursday Night Painting Fundamentals - The Still Life in Oils

Our Thursday night still-life painting classes at Chrome Street Studios in Salisbury are a great introduction to oil painting.

Students will begin by drawing thumbnails to establish the proportions of each object, and how they relate to each other. This will begin the development of compositional design. Students will then begin the underpainting, blocking in each object in raw umber with respect to their local values. They can then block in each objects shadow shape to define a context for the light. Finally students will paint the still life in colour learning how to accurately mix colours and model form.
Required materials
Mont Marie Oval Wooden Palette 38 x 30 x 4 (no white or paper Palettes)
The traditional kidney shaped Palette. For best results rub with linseed oil to provide a repellent surface.
Odourless Solvent
Small Cotton rags (cut up t shirts)
Paper Towel
Oil Paint
If you have oil paints, bring what you use
Recommend Winsor and Newton or Art Spectrum - DO NOT Recommend Winton, Schminke, Reeves
Limited Palette - Raw Umber, Lamp Black, Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre, Titanium White
Basic Palette - Ultramarine blue, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Yellow, Titanium White (Recommended)
Full Palette - Raw Umber, Viridian, Ultramarine blue, Alizarin Crimson, Permanent Rose, Burnt Umber, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, Titanium White.
Teardrop Palette knife size 8
Brushes (Long Handle only)
Neef 95 Filbert Stiff Synthetic - 2 x Size 6
Neef 95 Flat Stiff Synthetic - 2 x Size 3
Art Spectrum Series 1500-R Round - 2 x size 2
Neef Red Series 140 Hogs Hair - 1 x size 8 or 10
(basic just get 1 of each)

Workshops

Portrait Painting

The Portrait painting course will begin with students learning to use the limited palette. The limited palette, the so called 'Zorn' palette, is incredibly effective for painting flesh tones and a brilliant introduction to learning how to mix colours. Ideally students will have gained a considerable understanding of the drawing process prior to beginning the Portrait painting course.

Figure Painting

Our figure painting workshops will be conducted at a time to be announced. We will be using a limited palette and cover mixing, an introduction to materials, values, and modelling form. Includes life model. Contact us to express your interest.

Digital Painting

The primary focus of the Digital Painting course is for students to learn the fundamentals of classical drawing and painting on a digital platform. This course is not a course on understanding photoshop or procreate; students will be introduced to the interface primarily for the purposes of learning to draw and paint. Students will learn how to setup brushes, choose colour swatches, mix colours and other basic tools. The drawing component will be learning to measure proportions, create structure, model form and paint.
Required materials Photoshop and Wacom tablet or iPad Pro, Pencil and Procreate.

Principles of Fine Art

Tonal drawing

At its heart, tonal drawing is the representation of 'light'. It is a 2D approach to drawing; and by that, we mean shapes. Shapes have both a length component and width component but no depth component. Tonal drawing therefore, is concerned with shape design. The complexities of real life can be organised by an artist for the purposes of making a drawing through the use of intelligent shape design and the essential artistic device, the value scale.

You will notice in the picture above we stand at the easel an arms length from our paper. This allows us to see the whole work, this is important as eventually we wish to compose and we must see all the instruments for them to play in harmony.

A plumbline establishes an accurate vertical and horizontal
A pencil is used for measuring distances and angles
Comparative measurement ensures the objects' proportions are accurately related to each other and to their environment
Negative shapes
Squinting

These simple skills if practiced diligently and consistently will provide precise tools to create powerful, beautiful pictures.

Form drawing

Form drawing is the demonstration of 3D thinking on a 2D surface. Being able to illustrate 3D ideas on paper using line effectively is fundamental to traditional drawing and perhaps the highest skill in visual art. By learning how to draw simple forms such as cylinders, boxes, spheres and cones we begin to perceive our drawing surface as a 3D virtual world. When we think of the drawings of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael we are thinking of artists who were masters of form drawing, masters at representing 3D ideas on a 2d surface.

The language of form drawing is the language of perspective, the invention and discovery of which we can thank the architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Artists such as Massacio and Giotto were the first to use these ideas whether through intuition or understanding first hand. The most powerful concepts students should practise to develop their sense for form drawing are

Boxes
Ellipses

Colour Theory

If we are able to solve the drawing issues and we wish to paint something the fundamental questions we must ask ourselves are, 'What is the colour of the subject?' and 'What colour is the light?' To accurately mix a colour we must first ascertain the hue, value and chroma.

The use of colour has long been the domain of the artist. However the understanding of colour was also the concern of science, some of histories greatest minds like Goethe and Newton devoted some time to the study of colour even creating their own colour wheels. It wasn't until Munsell came along in the 20th century that the scientific identification of a colour could be specified accurately. From the results of his experiments the terms hue, value and chroma have given artists a greater understanding of their medium, beyond intuition.