Painting and drawing dialogues: looking back at self

What is the course about?

Visual perception is largely unconscious and individual. Regardless of the overt content of your images, to an extent the subject is always yourself. Revealing the unconscious traits in your looking can help to determine the kind of paint handling and drawing processes you instinctively favour and how this may come to help you to both refine and communicate your vision.

What will we cover?

• Explore different working methods between drawing and painting to highlight the unique way in which you organise and make sense from vision.
• How unconscious distortions in your looking are revealed in the way you compose and approach a drawing or painting.
• How your unique way of looking at the world impacts your choice of colour palette and paint handling.
• How to use these discoveries and insights to create more personal work.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...

• Handle drawing and paint media in a dialogue to communicate the unique way in which you see the world.
• Recognise and make use of the unconscious distortions that are registered in images to explore a fuller sense of what is communicated in your work.
• Recognise and make use of the significance of the colour choices you make in relation to what you are trying to express.
• Analyse how the way you draw, use paint and choose your palette reflect memory and the imagination.
• Discuss and evaluate the progress of your work.

What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?

This is an intermediate level course, intended for those with some painting or drawing experience (e.g. Painting 2, Drawing 2) or those who wish to explore the relationship between the two disciplines.

You should be able to follow simple written and verbal instructions, demonstrations, hand-outs and health and safety information, and will be invited to take part in group discussion. You should be able to use numbers and be able to do simple measurements and calculations.

How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?

Each session workshops a distinct aspect of the dialogue between painting and drawing, creating an atmosphere to support shared experimentation and discussion. The individual strands of thought arising, will be increasingly drawn together, but you will also be encouraged to make your own links between workshops.
The course offers:
• Practical structured projects
• Group discussion and evaluations
• One to one guidance
• Presentations on the work of selected artists

This course is supported by Google Classroom as a Virtual Learning Environment, where you will be able to access course material, presentations, and handouts etc.

Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?

All materials required are provided.

When I've finished, what course can I do next?

This is one of a suite of Painting and Drawing Dialogues courses. Taking further modules will expand your experience and confidence with cross-disciplinary working and prepare you for higher level study in the City Lit’s Advanced Practice area.