Course Structure

The course is delivered with a contemporary twist with further inspiration from contemporary living artists. Students will learn how to make their own inspired, personally self-expressive still life drawings that celebrate the ideas and innovation of these famous artists.

Over the 6 sessions we will learn and explore the following ideas:

Cezanne: Simplifying nature
Cezanne is known as the father of Modernism.  He saw beyond surface detail and painted the underlying structure and form of objects, wanting to “treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone”.

Matisse: Expressive colour
Matisse inspired the world with his bold shapes and ground-breaking use of outrageous colour.  For the first time in art, paintings were able to express the artists feelings, rather than simply describe objects.

Picasso: Cubism
Picasso threw out all concepts of traditional art and re-imagined how artists could depict an ever changing dynamic modern 3D world on a flat surface.  His solutions were revolutionary and still shock people today.  

Modernism and Post Modernism
Since the 1970’s, we live and create art within a Post Modernist world. But what does this mean? How do the ideas of these great artists fit into the contemporary ideas of Post Modernism? Are there any Post Modernist ideas we would like to incorporate into our own work?

By the end of the workshop…

Students will leave the course with a greater appreciation of Modern art. Students will have a greater understanding about how Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso’s ideas changed the world and how and why we make art today the way we do. Having travelled a creative journey together students will have discovered their own creative solutions to adopting some of their ideas and techniques and found ways to transform their own drawing and painting.