30 Paintings in a Day Course

30 PAINTINGS IN A DAY 2022

"I've always played and taken risks in my painting and working on several pieces can be fun and freeing." Lesley Birch

a day course with Lesley Birch in York, UK
Play * Explore * Create

Venue
St Olave's Church Hall
Marygate Lane
York YO30 7DS
UK

10am - 3.30pm

All art materials are provided
+
Refreshments throughout the day
a selection of fruit and chocolate biscuits, gluten free biscuits, nuts, crisps, fresh coffee, Earl Grey, Assam tea and herbal teas - decaf tea/coffee
a glass of Prosecco to celebrate the end of a day's creativity

Cost £175

Play, Experiment, Explore

colour experiments mixing media

Demo - experimenting with line and tone, using charcoal, thinned acrylic and pencil on first layers of several landscape pieces

watercolour with printmaking

small 8 x 6 inch pieces using limited palette in the abstract

smoothness of acrylic using a roller, texture using medium

demo of contrasts - generic landscape exercise

Discover a host of different media
to produce 30 paintings in a day!

Enjoy painting on beautiful smooth and textured high quality paper

Free up your approach
Learn to Play with Control
Experiment with different media
See what happens
Go with the Flow

By working in quantity, you can let go of preciousness about your painting
And you can select quality from the pieces you produce

I also believe in using the best materials -
different papers affect your outcome
and different media too

You'll leave this course with a host of artwork ideas and pieces
generated in our sessions ...
with artistic food for continuing your journey afterwards ...

Refreshments throughout the day
Bring a packed lunch or explore York's cafes, or continue on your painting

student work to a theme

With an emphasis on experimentation, this course suits
adventurous beginners and experienced
- no need to bring anything except an apron -

Newsprint and tape are provided to enable you to wrap up your paintings to take home
Relax when planning your journey - no need to think about what art stuff to take with you

All Materials Provided

"I LOVE not having to bring anything ... so freeing." LS

"The choice of materials is made for me ... stretching my imagination and practice" TT

Expect a host of exciting, high quality materials ...
with exercises led by Lesley
if you've not tried these before then stretch yourself with time to play
mixing media and experimenting ...

Lesley's original exercises and demonstrations are designed
to help you both free up and limit your play

Here are just some of the materials Lesley has used in this course over the years ...

Wet Media - acrylics, watercolours, brusho pigments, Indian Inks, gouache, liquid charcoal
Dry Media - 2B/3B/4B/5B/6B pencils, Neo crayons, Inktense pencils, Artgraf, Pastel Pencils, graphite pencils, Posca Pens, China Markers, Sennelier and Craypas oil pastels
Papers - 300gsm high quality Snowdon, 320 gsm Khadi rag paper, a selection of high quality Fabriano
plus a selection of collage papers and lots more

Lesley encourages participants to make notes in response to the materials.
You'll find yourself trying out new things and being surprised.
This is an opportunity to experiment, play and move
towards discovering what YOU like!

STUDENT WORK

COURSE STRUCTURE
10am - 3.30pm

Lesley is an experienced, trained teacher
and a generous sharer of her creative practice
Having taught in schools in the past,
her lessons are clearly structured and
tailored to suit each class.
Expect brief demos, product information
and a select
number of suitable, creative, structured exercises
Expect to experiment and play
Expect to leave with lots and lots of paintings - some of which you'll like,
some of which you won't but probably will later!!!

see examples of some of Lesley's original exercises below

colour slabs in contrast
following the flow in watercolour
monoprinting by hand with Craypas
the joys of perylene black
letting the brush speak
building texture + gold leaf
the power of paper - embossing
collage and print text
rolling smooth
ABC of shape
generic abstract landscapes in Indian Ink & Gouache
use line, leave space
the ABC of design
scratchy scraffito
Artgraf waterways
Charcoal Liquid & Pigment Neutrals
personal mylar stencils
Wash & Texture Playtime
mark-making with acrylic paint pens
oil pastels and acrylic
game of colour
Indian Ink, China Markers with Graphite Wash
game of themes

Bring a packed lunch and carry on painting or visit one of York's many nearby cafes
Work as fast or as slowly as you like (30 paintings is only a challenge!)

MATERIALS
Discover what you like
Making time to play with materials is always a challenge – Life gets in the way.
On this course, you’ll experiment with a host of interesting media - Sennelier Oil Pastels, Soft Pastels, Graphite, Inktense Pencils, Pastel Pencils, Acrylics, Indian Ink, Collage, Posca Pens, China Markers and Charcoal and lots more.

COLOUR
Limit your Palette to suit your theme
By reducing your choice of colour, you can develop an exciting body of work, united and related to your theme.
Warm or cool, saturated or unsaturated.

Lesley Birch demo on theme of winter

SURFACE
Discover Smooth or Textured
Our surfaces will be beautiful acid-free paper from 280gsm – 320gsm.
Your choice of texture (or not!) will depend upon your theme.
Smooth - you can use water to thin out the paint
Texture - you can use collage or acrylic texture mediums to thicken the surface and the paint

Lesley Birch Demo on 250gsm Clairefontaine Grey - on theme of Winter

Whiteboard Notes - Lesley teaches and demos from the front and also visits each person for one-to-one chats/advice/feedback

Different Acrylic brands produce different resutls

Artgraf works both wet and dry

Dry Media made Wet - "I discovered Derwent Inktense pensils years ago. I love a line and much of my early work both on canvas and paper features these beautiful ink lines. They are a staple in my studio and in my sketchbook bag." Lesley

MORE STUDENT WORK

You'll leave this course with a selection of artwork pieces generated in our sessions ...
with artistic food for continuing your journey afterwards ...

YORK is an exciting city to explore, so why not make a weekend of it.
Book into a boutique b & b and explore the galleries and history of York
ACCOMMODATION LIST AVAILABLE

"I love working on paper as it offers me an immediacy in the mark-making ..."
Lesley Birch 2019

LESLEY BIRCH AT PLAY IN HER STUDIO
Lesley Birch's sketchbooks and play paintings act as a practice for the larger works she makes in both her home and city studios.

"Play is a very important part of my art practice. Experimenting and following my intuition allows me to make marks, make mistakes, create colours and give myself surprises." Lesley Birch 2019

LESLEY BIRCH ON FILM