Still Life Painting with David Baird

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

This workshop will primarily focus on mixing color in oil paint. Working from a still life motif, students will learn to produce harmonious color relationships from observation. Paintings will be developed over the course of two days, beginning with broad color notes and working toward more refinement in the color and drawing.

Through the introduction of concepts like hue, value, and chroma, as well as basic color theory, students will analyze their perceptions and recreate them with mixtures of paint, learning to guide themselves toward more meaningful, sophisticated color and tonal relationships.

Also discussed will be a range of technical processes, including procedures for blocking-in, performing opaque passes, glazing, and scumbling.  Classes will consist of demonstrations and lectures followed by individual one-on-one critiques of students while they work.

David Baird (b. 1986, USA) is an oil painter and draftsman primarily focused on figurative work. He has taught classes in the US, Australia, and Europe, and has also been visiting faculty at Studio Escalier, a contemporary classical art school, since 2016.

In 2006, he began his training at the Ryder Studio School in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He went on to attend classes at Studio Escalier (Argenton Chateau/Paris, France), and The Jerusalem Studio School (Jerusalem, Israel), as well as benefitting from extensive exposure to some of Europe’s greatest museums and works of art.