Tuesdays: May 3-24, 6-8 pm

The focus of this class will be developing paintings in oil from a live model, with an emphasis on color mixing. Students will begin with simplified color mixtures, working intuitively to establish the main tonal relationships of the motif. Using this as a base, nuanced color variations and more thoughtful color harmonies can be developed as time allows. 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.