About this workshop

Discover what’s hidden beneath really successful paintings – their design and composition.

Learn how  - a clear visual inspiration, developed into a strong abstract tonal design, then matched with a considered composition of the painting’s various elements -  will dramatically improve your paintings.

Add to these aspects your choice of colours, plus your personal painting style, and you will discover the secrets to most great paintings.

This is a detailed, challenging workshop for ambitious painters with at least some experience, when you will complete several small colour studies using the many insights that John will share with you through his tuition and demonstrations.

If you want to really ‘up your painting game’ and benefit from John Dinan’s forty years of painting and teaching experience, this workshop is for you. 

Topics will include:-

Identifying your visual inspiration, developing an abstract design through tonal studies, making colour choices, selecting appropriately from the many painting elements available – eg – line, texture, edges, colour, shapes, tones etc, practicing some important guiding principles for composition, and for evaluating your overall painting.

About your tutor

John Dinan is a professional artist who has been teaching art for over 20 years, in Ireland, France and Italy. He is an exhibiting artist in many of Ireland’s leading galleries in both the Republic and the north of Ireland. He has exhibited in RHA, Oireachtas and many solo and group exhibitions. He is a member of the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club, and of the Back Lane Painters, and is a founder member of the Portmarnock Art Group.

His landscapes, portraits and still lifes are held internationally in corporate and private collections.

He especially loves painting en plein air, and has run outdoor workshops and been a prize-winner at the international Art in the Open festival in Wexford. He paints in a varied range of styles, but his work is usually recognised through good drawing, strong compositions and bright colours. His workshops always receive great feedback for the extensive tuition, complete sharing of experience and insights, helpful one-to-one advice and the encouraging atmosphere he maintains in his classes. He lives in Cross, in south Mayo, near the village of Cong where he and his wife have had an art gallery for over 12 years. www.johndinan.comwww.congartgallery.com