Classical Painting Techniques

This eight-week virtual course brings the methods of historical painting directly into your studio. Led by Alanna Peters, you will move beyond mere art history to analyze and construct paintings using time-honoured techniques. The curriculum focuses on hands-on application, starting with crucial foundational skills like canvas preparation and preparing a colour palette based on historical pigments. Through detailed virtual demonstrations and guided practice, you will learn to execute sophisticated effects, including the calculated use of glazes to achieve incredible depth, controlled transitions, and luminosity. The emphasis is not on strict replication, but on understanding why these techniques function so powerfully, enabling you to refine and adapt them to cultivate your unique personal style. You will leave the course with a profound appreciation for classical structure and a powerful, adaptable skillset for your painterly approach.

Define and prepare surfaces using historical methods to create a stable foundation for oil painting.

Analyze historical palettes and effectively mix colour using a limited, controlled range of pigments.

Construct a painting with a structured underdrawing and effective value control, moving from imprimatura to finished form.

Develop control over the glazing process to achieve luminous effects, create depth, and manipulate light within your composition.

Refine your gestural brushwork and application techniques to manage paint opacity and create varied textures.

Explore how classical methods can be adapted to broaden your current visual vocabulary and contemporary intuitive process.

Painting support:

Please bring your preferred choice of support in a manageable size no smaller than 8”x10” and

no bigger than 18”x24’.

● Primed canvas

● Primed painting board

● My preference is for aluminum ACM panels which is what I will bring

Also bring a painting paper pad 8”x10” or 11”x14” so we can do some smaller colour theory and

technique practice. Example : https://www.deserres.ca/products/canvas-

pad?variant=40128113115269

Paints:

I will be using oils paints but will make suggestions for acrylic users as to how to mimic oils. It

won’t however work exactly the same as oil, but you can get good results as well.

If you are using oils:

Please bring an odourless and preferably non toxic solvent and linseed oil.

I use Chelsea lean/fat or lavender spike oil https://www.chelseaclassicalstudio.com/

If you are using acrylics:

Please bring a medium like Golden medium retarder (https://www.deserres.ca/products/golden-

retarder?variant=39362087551109)

so you can slow the rate of drying which can help with mixing and glazing. Or use Golden open acrylics that dry less quickly

Paint colours:

This is my basic palette:

(Can bring what you have as well but this is a suggestion as to what I will be using)

● Titanium white

● Ultramarine blue

● Lemon yellow

● Payne’s grey

● Naples yellow

● Burnt umber

● Burnt sienna

● Phthalo blue

● Alizarin Crimson

Some nice to have colours:

( I don’t use all these colours at the same time they come onto my palette occasionally based on need. You can also bring some other colours you have that you like to use)

● Colbalt teal

● Radiant turquoise

● Kings blue

● Radiant blue

● Cadmium red

●Terra rosa

● Cadmium orange

● Sap green

Brushes:

Please bring a variety of sizes and shapes. Ideally having approximately two brushes per size

so you can have dark and light brushes on the go at the same time and won’t have to clean

them as much.