Painting Foundations: Drawing into Paint

Are you new to painting or looking to expand your practice? This five-day intensive offers a supportive studio environment where you can build foundational skills while discovering your own approach to painting.

Guided by painter Stephanie Eather, you'll explore colour, value, colour mixing and the expressive language of the brushstroke. Drawing on examples from the Renaissance to contemporary practice, Stephanie will demonstrate how to set up a palette, handle brushes and work with the material qualities of paint.

The week is grounded in observational drawing. Beginning with line, measurement and value, you'll develop skills that carry through each day of the course. These foundations are first applied to monochrome still life studies and then extended into colour, composition and observational painting.

Working primarily in acrylic (or oils if you prefer), you'll spend the final days experimenting and following your own interests as you develop the week's studies into more resolved works. The course concludes with a group discussion reflecting on process and progress.

By approaching painting as an open-ended process rather than a fixed outcome, you'll leave with greater confidence, a deeper understanding of colour and form, and a broader painting vocabulary to support your ongoing practice.

Course Schedule:
The following is an indicative course schedule only. The content and pace of the sessions may vary in response to the students in the program.

• Day 1 – Orientation & Drawing Foundations
  Welcome, materials overview and an introduction to the shared foundations of drawing and painting. Through observational drawing and monochrome still life studies, students explore line, measurement and value, translating drawing techniques into paint.
• Day 2 – Colour & Value
  Explore the fundamentals of colour and value through exercises, colour mixing and observational colour studies.
• Day 3 – Brushwork & Colour Language
  Examine approaches to brushwork from the Renaissance to Modernism and explore tonal relationships, colour and the material qualities of paint through observational studies and group reflection.
• Day 4 – Experimentation & Composition
  Using still life and plein air studies as source material, students develop composition, refine techniques and begin shaping a personal painting language.
• Day 5 – Development & Reflection
  Develop the week's studies into more resolved paintings, concluding with a group discussion reflecting on process, progress and individual directions.

* Short courses and weekend workshops are open to students of ages 16 years and over. The NAS Art Club is open to students between 15 - 17 years of age.

* Drawing and painting short courses may be held in upstairs studios. If access to stairs is not suitable, please contact us at short.courses@nas.edu.au

* What to bring? Please refer to the list of required materials in the Art Materials field below.

Students must supply their own art materials, please refer to the list below.

General materials

• Rags and/or paper towels
• 1 or more palette knife for mixing and applying paint
• 1 x apron/protective clothing
• 1 x roll masking tape
• 2 x plastic palette or disposable palettes/make-shaift palettes (icecream container lids etc)
• 3 x water jars
• 1 x A4 printout of a favourite painting
• 1 x stanley knife
• 1 x glue stick
• 2 x bulldog clips
• 500mL gesso (or white house paint)
• 1 x house paint brush for applying gesso to canvas/brown paper
• 1 x 2B pencil
• 1 x box of willow charcolal 2-3mm
• 1 x eraser
  

Mediums
250ml bottle of Matisse drying retarder medium (for acrylic paint)
125ml bottle of Gamsol odorless solvent (for oil paint)

Paints (oil or acrylic)
All colors are suggested only and are not all essential for this course. The list includes warm and cool colours, however, you are welcome to begin with what you already have in your collection. Please bring acrylic paints, gesso, and craft brown paper to the first class and the lecturer will discuss the materials with you. Student quality paints are fine, rather than more expensive professional artists’ quality paints.

1 x Titanium White 120ml tube
1 x Ivory Black
1 x Magenta
1 x Cadmium Red (warm red)
1 x Crimson (cool red)
1 x Cadmium Yellow Light or Lemon yellow (cool yellow)
1 x Cadmium Yellow Deep (warm yellow)
1 x Ultramarine Blue (warm blue)
1 x Cobalt Blue
1 x Indigo (cool blue)

Supports
1 x A3 drawing sketch pad 10 sheets
1 x A3 oil sketch pad (for oils or acrylic)
1 x A3 acrylic pad (for acrylic only)
*Option for day 4 & 5* students can purchase A1 sheets thick craft (brown) paper at Parkers Art Supplies on campus

Enclosed footwear is essential in all studios on campus.

Stephanie Eather is a visual artist, living and working between Naarm (Melbourne), Gadigal land (Sydney) and rural Eastern Australia. Her painting practice explores the intersection of memory, materiality, and textile sustainability, informed by both traditional and contemporary drawing sensibilities. Stephanie completed a Master of Fine Art (Drawing) in 2023 at National Art School in Darlinghurst. She holds a Graduate Certificate in Art History from the University of Melbourne in 2013, and a Bachelor of Fine Art (Drawing) obtained from RMIT in 2009.

Eather’s artwork has been showcased in group and solo exhibitions across Australia and has been selected for prizes including the Gosford Art Prize and the Dobell Drawing Prize #21 and #22. In 2022, Eather was awarded the Bonner and Tonkin Drawing Award and won runner-up for the Vincent Prize in 2024. She is currently represented by Nanda\Hobbs in Chippendale, NSW. She teaches drawing and painting at National Art School, Sydney and at The Art Room in Melbourne.

https://nandahobbs.com/artist/stephanie-eather