Fancy learning this technique

Here we have the completed underpainting stage. It's a commission painting and the customer is more than happy with things so far. Portraiture is very different indeed from the normal wet on wet oil painting technique which I teach in my regular classes. If you'd like to learn this portrait technique, I have availability on the Valerie Stewart 4 day portrait seminar which will take place in June. Full details can be found HERE. With less than 6 weeks to go before Valerie flys in to the UK to teach us Europeans her marvelous method, there's still time to take part.

Time for some help

On Thursday I have a really busy class for 2 art groups who are joining together for an oil painting workshop. Both groups are from neighbouring villages and I've given demo's in the past to each of them. It's going to be an 8 hour day and will be manic loading the car, unloading, setting up and clearing away, let alone making and serving the drinks, keeping the paint topped up & cleaning the brushes. In fact I would be done in before I even started. I've had various voluntary helpers in the past and made huge use of several family members and friends - even student residents of the Apollo Studio. Had the class fallen at the weekend I'd have had a couple of people who could help out. Rather than struggle on my own I've decided to employ someone to help out. And the relief behind that decision is well worth every penny. I'll see if he can take some nice class snaps for me at some stage. I hope I'm in the position to do this more often.

Oil painting equipment

Although I have a variety of supplies on my website, I have quite a few other bits and bobs that are not listed. Often I will have bottles of thinners, cleaning buckets, beater racks, brush holders - all items which are either impossible or uneconomical to post. I have quite a selection of brushes that are suitable for watercolour and acrylics too. Not quite enough stock to put on the website, but plenty good enough to pop into a pot and take along to classes and art group demo's. There's some end of line tuitional DVD's available for various subjects and media. I also now have a range of quite superb oil paint in medium sized tubes at a very competitive rate. I've been trialing this paint for a little while now and it's really passed every test I've put it through, with a superb range of colours too. Most of these extra's are taken along to classes (subject to boot space) and are available for students to purchase at low cost as no postage and packing is involved. The recent addition to the product table are a selection of canvases, from standard rectangle, panoramic and mini size. So.......if you know you're coming along to a class soon and there's something specific you'd like, feel free to drop me a line on info@ayoubart.co.uk so I can be sure to include it in my goody box.