This course presents selected highlights from Dave West's weekly oil painting course

Over the past year, during the pandemic Dave West's weekly oil painting teaching practice temporarily move onto Big Look, where he posted weekly tutorials. We are happy to be able to present some highlights from this series for you to enjoy.

Course Content

Through a series of demonstrations, Dave West will guide you through the process of preparing for, and completing a small painting. You will see how understanding form and light before picking up a brush means that we come to the painting with a solid understanding of what we need to paint and greatly lessening the danger of overworking or muddying our finished painting.

  • Learn fundamental principles of geometry, light, colour theory, perspective etc.

  • Find light and shadow family and learn how to create a value map

  • Learn how to mix natural colours and how to lay down the paint alla prima

This course features a series of small oil scale painting challenges for you to try each week.

Welcome to weekly oil painting

  • Credits

Painting Skies pt.1

  • Blue Skies Tutorial

  • Materials List

  • Blue Skies Video

  • Sunset Tutorial

  • Sunset Video

  • Images for painting

Painting Skies pt.2

  • Clouds Tutorial (1)

  • Clouds Video (1)

  • Clouds Tutorial (2)

  • Clouds Video (2)

  • Cloud Images for painting

Painting Skies pt.3

  • Sunset with Clouds Tutorial

  • Sunset with Clouds Video

  • Image for painting (Sunset with clouds)

Skies & Seascapes

  • Tutorial 1

  • Video Demo 1

  • Images for painting 1

  • Sample Images 1

  • Tutorial 2

  • Painting figure silhouettes

  • Video Demo 2

  • Images for painting 2

  • Materials List

Skies & Landscape

  • Tutorial 4 Part 1

  • Tutorial 4 Part 2

  • Tutorial 4 Part 3

  • Video Demo 4 Part 1

  • Video Demo 4 Part 2

  • Video Demo 4 Part 3

  • Images for Painting Exercise

Painting Buildings - pt.1

  • Tutorial

  • Video Demo

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Buildings - pt.2

  • Tutorial

  • Video Tutorial 1

  • Video Tutorial 2

  • Video Tutorial

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Buildings - pt.3

  • Tutorial

  • Video Demonstration

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Buildings - pt.4

  • Preparation - Stage 1

  • Video Tutorial

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Buildings - pt.5

  • Tutorial

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Trees pt.1

  • Theory and Shapes

  • Painting a Tree

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Trees pt.2

  • Preparation

  • Colour Mixing

  • Block-in painting

  • Painting Study Demonstration

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Trees pt.3

  • Tutorial - Tackling a complete painting

  • Colour mixing

  • Video Tutorial Part 1

  • Video Tutorial part 2

  • Video Tutorial part 3

  • Images for painting

  • Materials List

Painting Trees pt.4

  • Tutorial - Working from a Photo Source

  • Materials List

  • Images for painting

Painting Trees pt.5

  • Simplifying a scene pt.1

  • Optional Tutorial - Aerial Perspective

  • Simplifying a scene pt.2

  • Video 1

  • Video 2

  • Images for painting

  • Further source images for painting

  • Materials List