A simple, easy-to-follow guide to (vaguely) re-creating one of Van Gogh’s self portraits. I made this painting about 10 years ago to demonstrate to some workshop students an approximation of Van Gogh’s working method. I made my painting before the workshop, photographing it at each stage, then supplying students with printed, illustrated step-by-step guides for…
Tag: art class
Postman Pat gone Delft
A wee while ago, I set students at one of my art classes a light-hearted challenge to design their own Delft tile. The challenge was intended to inject a bit of variety into the classes and to see what individual, personal designs each student could come up with. We didn’t work on tiles, but the…
Up the Manchester Ship Canal
Another painting made as a demo for one of my art classes. The theme of the class was ‘the industrial landscape’. I chose to make a painting based on a photograph taken one sunny summer afternoon in July of 2022. It depicts the view from the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port looking east along…
Beatles Forever
Here’s a paining I began as a demo piece for one of my online art classes, which I ran during the 2020-21 lockdowns. The theme I wanted my students to tackle on this occasion was ‘music’, challenging them to come up with a piece of artwork that reflected their relationship to music. My demo painting…
Leaves Under a Swing
I was pushing my youngest son on a ‘birds nest’ swing in the local playground one sunny autumn morning in 2022 when I distractedly noticed the fallen leaves lying beneath the swing. The strength of the colour I saw, and in particular the contrast between the autumnal colours in the leaves and the rich, sunlit…
Drawing Upon Life 