Service Description

🎨 Still Life Alla Prima Paint with speed, confidence, and clarity in this expressive still life oil painting workshop. Designed for beginners with some experience through to amateur artists, this session focuses on the Alla Prima (wet-on-wet) approach—completing a painting in a single sitting while working decisively and intuitively. Using carefully selected photographic still life references, you’ll explore how to understand value, shape, and form quickly and effectively. Photographs allow us to analyse light and structure clearly, making them an ideal tool for learning how to simplify complex subjects and make strong painterly decisions. Under the guidance of professional artist Dan Bethell (with over eight years of teaching experience), you’ll develop a bold, painterly approach to still life—learning when to define form and when to let colour, value, and brushwork do the work. 🖌️ What You’ll Learn: In this 4-hour guided workshop, you’ll create a complete Alla Prima still life painting that emphasises strong structure, confident colour, and expressive mark-making. 🎨 Breaking photographic references down into clear values and simple shapes 💡 Using light and shadow to describe form quickly and effectively 🧱 Building solid structure without overworking the paint 🎨 Mixing clean, purposeful colour for fast, confident decision-making 🖌️ Expressive, economical brushwork to suggest detail rather than describe it 🌫️ Softening and losing edges to create depth and focus ⚡ Working wet-on-wet to maintain energy and spontaneity throughout the painting By working from still life imagery with an Alla Prima mindset, you’ll strengthen your ability to paint decisively—balancing looseness and control while maintaining clarity and impact. 🧰 What’s Included: ✔️ One 10x12" canvas ✔️ Oil paints, mediums, and turpentine ✔️ Curated photographic still life references Please bring your own oil painting brushes and an apron. Synthetic brushes are recommended for control and responsiveness. Hog brushes work particularly well for wet-on-wet techniques. Brush recommendations are available on our blog. 📍 Location: Farndon Community Club 📅 When: One-off weekend workshop (5 hours) ✨ Spaces are limited – book your place early! ✨ Got questions? Dan’s happy to help—feel free to get in touch. No pressure. No perfection. Just paint with confidence, clarity, and intent.