
DIRECT PAINTING | SINEAD LAWLESS
DIRECT PAINTING
Course Summary
Join artist Sinead Lawless for a comprehensive guide to direct oil painting, or alla prima. This course is designed to build your skills from the ground up, beginning with the essential foundation of colour. You will learn to mix a vast spectrum of hues from a simple limited palette of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow, understanding how to control hue, value, and chroma for perfect harmony. With your colours prepared, Sinead then guides you through the dynamic alla prima process on the canvas. You will progress from laying down a tonal imprimatura and blocking in major shapes, to blending edges and applying final impasto highlights. This course demystifies the entire process, empowering you to create vibrant, expressive paintings with confidence and a solid understanding of both colour and technique.
Course Preview
Course FAQ
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Colour Theory & Mixing: How to mix a full spectrum of colours using a limited CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) palette and understand the properties of hue, value, and chroma.
Palette Preparation: The methodology for setting up your palette, managing your paint, and using different whites effectively.
The Imprimatura Technique: How to create a loose, tonal underpainting to establish light and shadow shapes on the canvas.
Strategic Blocking In: The process of laying down initial colour blocks, focusing on large shapes and correct values.
Expressive Brushwork: The use of different brushes to create textured, impasto marks that hold their shape and add energy.
The Art of Blending: When and how to blend edges between colours to soften forms while maintaining dynamic contrasts.
Adding Final Details: The technique of applying final highlights and details with thicker paint to enhance form and three-dimensionality.
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Paints: Cyan (e.g., Phthalo Green), Magenta (e.g., Quinacridone Magenta), Yellow (e.g., Cadmium Yellow Pale), Titanium White, Zinc White.
Brushes: A variety of brushes, including synthetic brushes for control and bristle brushes for impasto work.
Surface: Canvas board or primed canvas (not paper).
Solvent: Odourless mineral spirits or turpentine.
Palette & Tools: Palette knife for mixing, a physical palette.
Rags & Roll: Blue roll (paper towels) or clean cotton rags.
Optional: Cotton buds for fine details.
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Suitable for all levels - good understanding of the basic use of oil painting would be an advantage.
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The course is composed of two videos, a combined total of 62 mins. Enjoy the benefit of being able to watch and follow along at your leisure for the duration of your access.
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DIRECT PAINTING
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Part 1: Direct Painting
In Part 1 of this course, Sinead Lawless focuses on colour and palette preparation for the alla prima technique. You'll learn to set up a limited CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) palette, understand the properties of hue, value, and chroma, and master mixing a wide range of colours from just three tubes of paint before your brush ever touches the canvas.
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Part 2: Direct Painting
In Part 2, follow artist Sinead Lawless as she brings her colour study to life on the canvas. This session covers the entire alla prima painting process, from creating a tonal underpainting (imprimatura) and blocking in major shapes, to final blending and adding thick, expressive impasto highlights.
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