Through a combination of video clips, exercises, and project assignments, students will learn to use fundamentals of composition and color to create unique, original landscape paintings. Each week of this four-week course, students will submit their projects and art for feedback from me and their classmates.

The first week, we'll cover some of the mechanics of oil and acrylic painting -- how to mix and blend paint and how to accomplish the surprisingly difficult task of getting it to go on a canvas the way the artist wants. In the process, we'll learn about some different types of brushes, and for oil painters, we'll experiment with using a palette knife to apply thick paint to a canvas. The information in this session will allow students to experiment with their brushes, creating different patterns and textures.

On our second week, we'll introduce two of the most important ideas in landscape painting: the rule of thirds and the use of bluing and graying to create distance. First we'll talk about how to use the rule of thirds to create balanced paintings, and we'll learn how to use the rule to figure out where to place our primary and secondary points of interest. Students will then be directed to experiment using simple shapes to see if they can create illusions of distance using color.

On our third week, we'll look around the house for some common objects with simple shapes that we can use as models to experiment with form, light, and shadow. Via video clips, I'll show some examples of how to make a sphere, a square, and other basic shapes, and give them a three-dimensional feel using color values. Further, we'll learn some different ways to make realistic-looking shadows.

Finally, during our fourth week, students can either choose to paint outdoors or use a camera or phone to take a photograph of nature as a reference. Using what they've learned about composition, form, color, and light, they will then paint their own unique landscape paintings. Afterward, either one-on-one or as a class, will will talk about the easiest and most challenging aspects of our projects, and ways we can improve in the future.

Note: for many students, it will take more than one day, more than one painting session, to complete a painting. This is particlarly normal for oil painting, but for acrylics also. Students should not feel pressured to finish the painting before the end of the fourth week. Not only can we discuss their works-in-progress, but I will still offer comments and feedback on class work completed a week or two after class is over.

At the end of this class, students will have a foundation on which to continue to build artistic skill.