Earlier this month I started running weekly art classes at a local community centre on the Wirral peninsula. It was my intention to use these classes to put students on a personal creative ‘journey’.

The experience garnered in my painting workshops, which I’ve run from home since summer 2014, is that the majority of students, most of whom are largely untrained amateur painters, experience some stifling inhibitions. In establishing these art classes it was (and is) my ambition to suppress as many of these inhibitions as possible, and to release students’ capacity for creativity. I hope to help students produce truly original work about which they can feel proud, excited and creatively fulfilled.

In order to do, as a starting-point at each class I illustrate my personal approach to painting utilising stage-by-stage demonstrations. My brief demos alternate between oils and acrylics, with classes geared towards users of either medium.

The pictured painting was made prior to the first class and illustrates a stage-by-stage approach to the depiction of a still life subject. In it, the completion of a painting is reduced to a simplified four stage process. This methodology offers a logical path from start to completion in a relatively short space of time – a non-prescriptive alternative to students who may be unfamiliar with such an approach.

The canvas pictured was made on 3^rd August 2015 in Daler-Rowney Georgian oil paints on fairly coarse 20” x 16” canvas. Enquiries from budding painting students in the Wirral area interesting in attending classes are welcome (simon@birtall.co.uk).