Finding Your Colour Voice ONLINE COURSE

Lesson release dates: 2 - 13 December 2024
This course is still open to latecomers. All content is recorded and remains available after it is activated.
Continued access period: LIFETIME.

SYLLABUS: As a synesthete, it is no exaggeration to say that my existence is, and always has been, ruled by colour. Unintentionally, everything I do or consider seems translated by my subconscious into colour; it is how I understand the world. In addition to this, or perhaps because of it, since childhood I have been drawn to the work of great colourists: Giotto, Riley, Albers, Jarman, Steiner, Rothko, Kandinsky and many more. My background in architecture and landscape architecture further contextualises my immersive yet logical approach to colour and the teaching of its use. Like my art, this course is the result of melding instinct with knowledge.

In my sketching and textiles classes I work on the basis that as long as your colour palette contains something very dark and something very light, you can let intuition and what’s available fill in the spots between. But where does that intuition come from? How can it be found and developed if it just doesn’t come naturally? The answer is knowledge, practice, and confidence. With this in mind, I have devised ten novel lessons to guide you through the process of finding your colour voice. Exercises will cover a range of likely and unlikely topics, including the science and mechanics of colour, creating a colour-memory matrix, colour charting everyday objects, collapsing scenes to extract raw colour, abstracting by colour substitution, and many others.

FORMAT: a new session (ten in total) will be uploaded to a course page on my website every weekday at around 9am UK time (GMT or BST, depending on month) during the dates you select. Each daily session will include a learning objective, topic overview, contextual description, and video tutorial. In addition, two short bonus films, with briefs for weekend activities, will be shared on the two Friday afternoons. Once content is activated, it will remain accessible to you for the lifetime of the course. When I eventually decide to retire the course, I will email and give you four months notice of its removal. You therefore get the pace and rhythm of a real-time course, with the benefit of recorded content being replayable repeatedly anytime regardless of time zone or schedule.

ACCESS: I will email a link and password for the course page on the Friday before your course commences. Please be sure to type your email address correctly, so your access email doesn't go astray. If you haven't received your access link and password 48 hours before the course commences, please check your junk folder and/or email me at [email protected].

PRICING: The concessionary price is offered on an honesty-box basis. If your income is low, for whatever reason, please select concession. No explanation necessary.

MATERIALS:
You will need to gather the following to follow the lessons
• paper or notebook and pen or pencil (whatever you like for rough work and making notes)
• 10-15 watercolour paints, including red, yellow, blue, and black as essentials, plus a selection of other colours (either ones you are drawn to or colours that come in a classic set). Please note, I use pans rather than tubes in the course. Feel free to use either, if you have a preference. If you are completely new to watercolour, however, and/or are buying paint specially for the course, pans will allow you to follow my method more closely.
• Opaque white paint, either “Bleed-proof white” or a good quality Titanium white watercolour or gouache.
• A selection of round and flat watercolour brushes in a range of sizes (I‘m currently using round brushes in size 0, 2 and 6, and flat brushes, size 2, 6, 10 and 14).
• A3 (approx. 11” x 17”) pad of cold pressed or rough watercolour paper (I use at least 300gsm/140lb).
• Ruler, compass and scissors.
• Paper towel for blotting.
• White plate or palette for mixing colours.
• Access to clean water.

NOTE: regarding brands, there are many makers and retailers of the above items. I try to shop small, local, and independent, and often start my search for materials in ebay auctions to give unwanted materials a new home. Rather than recommending particular brands to you, I suggest you look at what is available wherever you are in the world. Watercolours vary in quality, price, luminance, lightfastness, and opacity, depending on the pigments and binders used in their making, so you could buy one or two colours from a few different makers, to see how they feel on the brush when reactivated by water.

COPYRIGHT: all content is my own. Bookings are for single or household use only. Please do not reproduce or share any course product - passwords, text, images, downloadable content, videos - without my written permission.