If you wanted to learn how to paint with oils as an adult to a high standard?

[Treeswherewesit89]

Where would you go?

UK? Northern Europe?

Full time or part time?

I am sixty years old, have one year, and have some funds but not excessive amounts.

I am serious about wanting to be taught properly using traditional methods initially.

Does anyone have any recommendations please?

@Treeswherewesit89 what a lovely idea!

Perhaps take local classes first so that when you go wherever, you have good grounding and optimise the experience.

Good luck

I learnt from a brilliant teacher called Nelson Ferreira who was doing classes in a building near my work. Not sure if he's still teaching but you could look him up.
Traditional methods but still accessible. I do commissions now.

Also there is an art school in Borough in London which has a whole range of classes, but I haven't done any there in oil painting.

For what it's worth I don't really draw. I project images so basically trace them, as a starter for the painting. I get a bit bored by drawing and want to get on to what I think of as the fun bit.

Very nice! Anywhere near Mechelen? I'll ask Twitter Friend tomorrow.

Slightly off topic but I wonder if you/they know the John Finnemore song, Belgium: Comedy gold.

I hadn’t heard that before no! 😀

And nowhere is very far away in Belgium but my relatives live near Antwerp.

Northern France would work too.

Thank you so much for this. I see he is based in Spitalfields. Very interesting!

I’m really grateful for these links thank you.

There used to be an excellent publication called the Painting Holiday Directory run by someone who really knew what they were doing but I can’t find it on-line anymore sadly.

But this link looks interesting:

thefineartroom.com/courses

Thank you!

Mark Carder on Youtube is v good
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrawMixPaint
Hopefully his videos are still free, I used them over lockdown.
He is american and developed his own oil paints. I also liked the french artist recommended by Appolonia
I found oil paint easier than acrylic as it covers better (covers my mistakes)!

I've been on short courses at Newlyn and also St Ives art schools so if recommend those first. I'd love to go on a longer one abroad though, with classical techniques as you're describing, please come back and let us know what you end up doing

Also, agree about City Lit - their admin was terrible for me too

I was very lucky to learn the traditional way, but I think that it’s important to accept that a traditional atelier training, as in Florence at studios like Florence academy or Charles Cecil is a) expensive and b) slow. In lots of these courses, you may not even hold a paintbrush in the first year.
Drawing is the absolute basis of all of these type of atelier training, and generally all starts with bargue drawing. If you can buy a book, and practice the exercises, this is a good basis. The basics are important, knowing how to position an easel , how to optimise the properties of materials and so on.
Learning to oil paint does not have to be expensive . Oil paints can be bought second hand, many are good after many years.
For plein air painting, and technique , as well as good practical tips , I’ve always thought Marc Dalessio has a great blog.

Hi! My Belgian Twitter friend near Antwerp suggests you might "contact the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerpen (you can study painting there but no idea if they do a special course for oil paint. Probably part of a general curriculum.)

She also suggested private school Vanderkelen in Brussels but they may be too specialised. I contacted a lady in Antwerp (has an FB page) who gives all kind of painting courses. Asked her if she also offers oil painting. Will advise when I get an answer."

HTH. Hope your searching's going well.

Just returned to see more replies! Thank you so much everyone, some incredibly helpful information here!

CrystalSingerFan
Thank you so much for going to the trouble of following up with your friend, it's so very kind of you and very much appreciated. I'm getting ready to go on holiday today but I will follow up once there. My search is going well thank you. Exploring lots of possibilities and hoping to sign up for September.

Thank you this is really interesting. I have done a lot of drawing but I don't know if my skills will ever reach the extremely high standards of bargue drawing.

In my previous lessons, I remember being relieved to finish a drawing of a featureless head sculpture positioned face on, which took approximately two weeks, and my tutor turning it 30 degrees to the right and saying "good, now start again". 😀

I am rather envious of anyone who has mastered such technical proficiency
Sattareh
I know there is no other way than to practice every day for years.

Very good points about mastering the basics and thank you for the blog reference also. I will look him up.

I will let you know, thank you sinesperanza

I've always wanted to paint at St Ives, I understand the light there is incredible.

Disappointing about City Lit isn't it? Suspect it's down to poor management.

Thank you very much, this is really useful information.

I will be dabbling a bit on holiday and so all of these on-line recommendations are very helpful too.

Aaah, sounds a bit like my Foundation year at London's Central School of Art and Design. We had a still life drawing/painting class where the conventional still life on the stand in the middle of the students' easels was put inside a black bin liner. I think we were asked to draw the negative space... 😀

CrystalSingerFan

Too late to edit: When I say September, I mean September 25!

Need time to build up my skills again after a pause of many decades, see if my hands will be steady and deft enough which is a worry.

And then time to make accommodation arrangements, save money and build up a portfolio and apply.

One thing we've done in my Art class is copy Old Masters. It's v helpful as you learn different styles of painting, which helps you learn colour mixing, brushstrokes, composition etc

Here are some of my efforts!

Oh yes, negative space! Defining boundaries and balancing composition...

I remember a bit of that through the dim dark mists of time 😀

Well done Appalonia! You are really prolific!

I really love your "Turner"

Your paintings look great!

I've never copied old masters myself, although I love seeing people still doing it in art galleries/museums. Did you find it easier doing artists you loved or artists you didn't like so much? (Not a Renoir fan, if that's what one of them was.)

When I studied Art History I found it easier to be dispassionate when writing essays about art I didn't care for much, such as sculpture.

Thank you! Well we didn't have a choice about which artists to copy, but one thing I really enjoyed about doing it, especially with the Turner ' The Fighting Temeraire ', was learning more about the history of that painting and why it was so important. It's also given me a greater appreciation of Monet, and I think my style ( such as it is ), is now v influenced by his work.

Oh that's interesting. I love Monet, although I've never tried to paint like him. But the colours, and the choice of subjects are just brilliant. (Plus I adore his garden at Giverney and own a cookery book of his recipes with the best chocolate cake recipe ever.)

If you like learning more about the history of the paintings, do you know about the Open University's free Art History online lessons? https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/free-courses?filter=date/grid/90/all/all/all/all I studied Art History with the OU when it was affordable (ish) and these are from those courses. Completely fab!