Suitable for oils and acrylics, this course will focus on painting outside, capturing the freshness and vitality of the landscape. You will learn to structure a painting with a sense of light, form, space and atmosphere. Responding to what you see and improvising can produce surprising and exciting results. There will also be time to develop work further in the studio, and Tom will sometimes paint alongside the group in order to demonstrate ideas and techniques. The emphasis of the tuition is on helping each student to develop good observational and technical skills and through that find their own approach.
Tom Benjamin has been a painter and tutor for over twenty years. He normally works on landscape painting outside, in front of his subject, all year round and in any weather. In contrast, he has also pursued a successful career as a portrait painter. He trained at Norwich School of Art and currently teaches at West Dean College and the University of Sussex. He has a long list of one-man and group shows to his credit, most recently with Sarah O Kane Fine Art and the HQ Gallery in Sussex. His next solo show 'The Brighton Beach Paintings' is in March 2010.