While for most art-lovers it is enough to stand in awe in front of a well-made painting, the aspiring painter soon wants to know how the picture was brought about. What materials were used? What thought processes led the artist through his creative process?

In this course we shall study the ‘making of’ of a wide number of paintings. From chalky Mexican murals to the ‘finish fetish’ of West Coast minimalism, from tranquil Japanese inkbrush painting to the painterly bravura of the Baroque. We want to know what’s inside a painter’s toolkit: physically as well as mentally.

Where possible we shall follow the creation of a painting from the first flash of inspiration to the final finishing touches, investigating a wide range of techniques along the way. Though we shall study imagery as a piece of technology, we will predominantly focus on the correlation between imagery and the techniques that bring these images into being. Along the way we will learn that technique is more than just the clever use of appliances or showing off some fantastic skill. That it is in fact the deliberate attempt of an artist to enhance a picture’s impact by the careful selection of materials and compositorial schemata.

Through a series of well-documented lectures we will create a deep understanding of the physical and non-physical techniques involved in picture-making. Ideally, at the end of each lesson, the student walks away with a list of fresh ingredients he can put in his creative cauldron.

We will do what artists always have done: ransack the past in order to give birth to the new.

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