Still Life in Oils: Painting Light and Form

Join Evan Salmon for a weekend workshop exploring oil painting through careful observation. Working from still life subjects, students will learn to look closely at the relationships between objects, light and space.

Through demonstrations and guided painting exercises, participants will build confidence with oil painting materials while developing skills in colour mixing, tonal value, composition and paint application. Particular attention will be paid to the effects of light on different surfaces and the role of spatial relationships within a painting.

Designed for intermediate to advanced students, this workshop is ideal for painters looking to expand their skills and experience with oil paint. Students with prior painting experience in other mediums, including acrylics, are welcome, making this an excellent introduction to oils for those new to the medium.

* Short courses are open to students of ages 16 years and over. The NAS Art Club is open to students 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.

Images 2 and 3 Courtesy of Evan Salmon
Still life with Caspar David Friedrich poster, 2025, oil on linen, 61 x 66.5cm.
Scissors with Matisse postcard, 2024, oil on linen on board, 33.5 x 33.5cm.
Evan Salmon is represented by Gallery LNL.

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

General Materials

• Please bring your favourite portable sketching materials for the sketching session on the first day and a pencil and paper for note taking.
• Palette knife (diamond shaped like a trowel)
• Palette mid-tone (either brown or grey)
• Cotton cloth rags (old sheets are best)
• Paper towel
• Refined linseed oil at least 250ml
• Odourless solvent 100ml
• Disposable gloves (optional; vinyl is better than latex)
• Small glass jar with lid
• Masking tape
• Scissors
  

Painting Supports: Please purchase a stretched canvas of approx. 30 x 40cm.

Brushes: Please bring all the brushes you currently own. It is preferable to have 5 or more of each brush you like to use rather than a whole lot of completely different brushes. If you are buying brushes specifically for this course, we recommend the following as a minimum:

• 4 (2 flat, 2 filbert) synthetic or natural hog hair brushes approx. 8mm wide
• 1 round, pointed, synthetic sable brush approx. 5mm wide

Paints

The following is a suggested list of paint colours. The painting you choose to do might only require a limited selection of colours so please bring the paints you already have and discuss with Evan before purchasing additional paints.

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

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.