Big Look

While this term was delivered in Mar-Apr 2023, members who sign up to the Interactive Class will have access to this content. Historically the term “pastoral’ relates to the idea of humans living in harmony with the cultivated landscape often featuring soft lighting, rolling green fields, homesteads, and herding livestock.

We will approach the process of constructing a pleasing composition by breaking down a scene into a ‘jigsaw’ of large and smaller shapes by arranging them in a visually pleasing way. By following this course you will train your mind to see beyond what the painting is literally made of (leaves, branches, and people) and look at it in a more abstract way. In so doing you will achieve work that operates on 2 levels: subject (landscape with sheep and fields for example) and abstract (a good design made of varying sized shapes and values).