Beginning Oil Painting

Beginning Oil Painting

Adult Course | Registration opens 8/5/2025 10:00 AM MDT

200 Grant St Denver, CO 80203 United States
206
Beginner
9/4/2025-10/23/2025
6:00 PM-9:00 PM MDT on Th
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$516.00
$438.60

Beginning Oil Painting

Adult Course | Registration opens 8/5/2025 10:00 AM MDT

Learn to paint in oils as you analyze subjects in terms of shape, value, color and edges. Practice color mixing and how to organize a painting in terms of light and shadow. Explore still-life and landscape to express your inner artistic genius, as well as work with a nude and clothed model later in the class. You will be introduced to the basics of painting Still Life, Figure, Portrait, and Landscape painting. You will gain experience with the tools and techniques used to make representational oil paintings. You will be able to paint using a simple light and shadow compositional structure and be introduced to tools that help make compelling abstract compositions of their chosen painting subject. You will be introduced to the basics of painting color theory and should leave the course with a better understanding of where their interests lie in representational painting.

  • Sketchbook
    Palette, the Masterson Sta-Wet is used by lots of artists, but a canvas panel covered with wax
    paper can work.
    Panels or canvas; 8x10, 9x12, and 12x16
    Wet canvas container (Handy Porters or a clean pizza box works fine.)
    Mirror, makeup compact is fine.
    Paint: any palette of colors a student is familiar with are fine. My recommendations:
    -Ivory Black; Cadmium Yellow (or Cad Yellow Medium) (Hues are fine); Cadmium Lemon Yellow (Hues are fine)
    -Cadmium Red (or Napthol Red, or Cad Red Medium) (Hues are fine); Permanent Alizarin Crimson
    -Ultramarine Blue; Cobalt Blue (Hues are fine); Sap Green
    -Yellow Ochre; Transparent Red Oxide (or Trans. Earth Red, or Burnt Sienna)
    -Titanium White, perhaps a large tube of the white
    In some situations I add the following:
    -Permanent Green Light, Viridian, Cadmium Orange (Hues are fine), Dioxazine Purple
    -Brushes: Hogs bristle brushes: #4, #6, #8 filbert.
    I occasionally also use: #2 extra long filbert, or signature brush and a small, perhaps #0 soft
    watercolor brush.
    Palette knife,medium sized and flexible
    Paper Towels
    Odorless Mineral Spirits (don't go cheap here, purchase from an art supply store, like Guiry's or Meiningers)
    Brush washer to hold the Odorless Mineral Spirits.
Clyde Steadman

Clyde developed his skills by combining years of working from life in figure, landscape, and still life while studying with the finest teachers in Denver. He is known for combining technical virtuosity with emotional directness in his oil paintings. He has exhibited in a variety of Denver galleries, and shown in Santa Fe, and Taos, New Mexico; Destin, Florida; and Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is collected internationally, and is represented in the collections of Kaiser Permanente, Children's Hospital, and St. Josephs Hospital Denver.
Teaching Philosophy Clyde teaches the elements of painting; shape, color, value, and edges. Through explanation, demonstration, and practice students come to master the elements. Like a poet learns vocabulary before writing poetry, an artist needs to command the elements of painting before being able to express the genius within. Artist Statement One key question a painter should ask is: "Why am I painting this?" The answer to this question provides a guide to what is essential in the painting. Anything that doesn't further the goal of communicating the painter's answer to the viewer is extraneous, and actually hurts the painting. This strategy guides me in composition. If I am responding to the expression on a face, it might not be important to include even a chin, or a hairline. Focusing on precise areas and limited subjects forces me to devote myself to the painting with an intense concentration. The composition becomes a carefully orchestrated combination of subject, shape, value, color and edges; all doing their part to communicate a specific emotion. If I'm lucky, the viewer will see that, and also sense the pure joy I get from playing with glorious gobs of color.