Painting Fundamentals for Beginners

This beginner-friendly course introduces the essential skills for painting in oils or acrylics. You’ll learn to capture the qualities of light in a personal, expressive way—without relying on photographic reference—by developing strategies of careful observation. Class projects will explore still life, urban landscapes, and portraiture, offering varied contexts in which to apply these skills.

Guided by painter Evan Salmon, you’ll gain insight into composition, proportion, perspective, and tonal relationships. Evan will demonstrate how to set up a palette and apply core principles of colour theory and mixing. Instruction will also cover both oil and acrylic techniques.

Students will progress from mixing chromatic greys for monochrome studies, to working with a limited palette, and ultimately to creating full-colour paintings. By the end of the course, you’ll have built confidence, a deeper understanding of colour, and the foundational skills to produce a series of resolved artworks.

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 & Foundations (colour mixing, still life)
Introduction to the NAS studio, outlining course materials, including lecturer demonstration. Begin painting still life (chromatic grey monochrome), followed by group critique and reflection.

Day 2 & 3 - Urban landscape
Day 2: Beginning with lecturer presentation discussing both historical and contemporary painting practices, including examples of lecturer’s work.
Working from observation within the grounds of the art school, participants will make tonal compositional studies on paper to inform paintings made either in the studio or en-plein air. Group discussion.

Day 3 - Completion and resolution of paintings. Individual feedback followed by group critique and refection.

Day 4 & 5 - Portrait painting (life model in the studio)
Day 4: Project beginning with a demonstration of colour mixing for portraiture, utilising historical and contemporary examples. Participants will make a portrait painting based on direct observation of the life model.
Day 5. Completion and resolution of paintings followed by group critique and refection.

* Short courses 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.
Note: Work in either oils or acrylic, one or the other.
Please feel free to use materials that you already have. If you have any
questions regarding the colour selection, please contact Evan via short.courses@nas.edu.au

Paints Oil paint (Art Spectrum)

• Titanium white 150ml tube
• Yellow ochre 40ml tube
• Lemon yellow 40 ml tube (cool)
• Spectrum yellow 40 ml tube (warm)
• Spectrum red 40 ml tube (warm)
• Alizarin crimson 40 ml tube (cool)
• Ultramarine blue 40 ml tube (warm)
• Pthalo blue 40 ml tube (cool)
• Burnt sienna 40 ml tube
• Raw umber 40 ml tube
• Ivory black 40 ml tube

Acrylic Paints (Matisse or Atelier)

• Titanium white, 250ml tub
• Yellow ochre (oxide) 120ml tube
• Lemon yellow (cool) 120ml tube
• Primary yellow (warm) 120ml tube
• Napthol red light (warm) 120ml tube
• Alizarin crimson (cool) 120ml tube
• Ultramarine blue (warm) 120ml tube
• Pthalo blue (cool) 120ml tube
• Burnt sienna 120ml tube
• Raw umber 120ml tube
• Ivory black 120ml tube

Mediums

• Oils: Refined Linseed Oil 250ml, Odourless Solvent 500ml
• Acrylics: Retarder medium and glaze medium 250ml

Brushes

• Flat or filbert brushes, sizes 2, 6 and 10 (hog hair bristle for oil. Synthetic or hog hair bristle for acrylic)

Supports

3 x Primed canvas boards or wooden prepared panels (approximately 30 x 40cm)

Other materials

• Wooden palette mid-tone (either brown or grey)
• Small palette knife (diamond shaped)
• Bond Pad A3
• Water spray bottle (for acrylic paint)
• Sunlight soap
• Disposable gloves, apron and cotton rags
• Utility knife for sharpening pencils
• Sealable jars for painting mediums

Enclosed footwear is essential in all studios on campus.

Evan Salmon is an artist who works in the mediums of painting, drawing and printmaking and is known for his landscape paintings, portraits and still lives. He has exhibited extensively in Australia for over thirty years, including at Watters Gallery. Across his career he has held 28 solo exhibitions and been included in numerous group exhibitions. His portraits have been selected for the Salon des Refuses at the S.H. Ervin Gallery 12 times between 2012 and 2025. Evan was highly commended in the 2024 Kedumba Drawing Award. He was awarded the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize in 2015 and was a finalist in the Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2006.

Evan’s work is held in the collections of the National Art School, National Gallery of Australia, NSW State Parliament, State Library of New South Wales, Artbank, University of Technology Sydney, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, University of Wollongong Art Collection, University of Wollongong in Dubai, Wollongong Art Gallery and private collections both in Australia and overseas.

He received a Diploma from the National Art School in 1991 and completed a Master of Fine Art (Research) at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW in 2002. Evan has been a Lecturer in Drawing at the National Art School since 2017 and previously taught painting and drawing to Diploma students at various TAFE colleges between 2002 and 2016.