An Introduction to Still Life - Paul Rossi PR001
5 week course
Date: Thursday 21st, 28th November, 5th, 12th, 19th December 2019
Time: 2pm - 4pm
Cost: £100 - materials to be provided by student (paper, pencils, pen & ink, charcoal, pastels)
Available places: 10
Tutor: Paul Rossi
Venue: Stiwdio 34,
34 Alfred Street,
Neath, SA11 1EH.
Workshop code: PR001
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INFORMATION
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Paul Rossi is one of the gallery's internationally recognised house artists. This is what he says about his course:
What is still life? Still-life has existed in one form or another since antiquity; Why is still-life an important genre or art form? Is it simply a source of pleasure, or does it have something to teach us?
Still-life supports the proposition that "ordinary things are very beautiful if you have eyes to see." Still-life is possibly the best way to discover the basic techniques of drawing and painting. The drawing/painting skills developed in still-life can be applied to any subject in art. We should expect to be challenged by the demands of still-life painting. Caravaggio said that it is as difficult to render such things as fruit as it is to paint the human figure.
The discipline of still-life is about slowing-down, taking a break from the fast-time of film and photography, in order to experience visual reality with renewed eyes. In other words, still-life can be seen, as it was seen by many of its practitioners, as a spiritual discipline.
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Among the issues that we will consider in the course of our sessions will be composition: still-life encourages an understanding of pictorial composition. What are the qualities of good composition?
We will also look at the history of the genre; this will help us to understand and evaluate still-life. Still-life played an important role in the development of modernism, which meant that it can help to introduce us to modern painting.
In order to make still-life, or for that matter, any genre of painting, we need to consider the principles of visual perception. We need to be aware of the psychological forces that inform the visual field.
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Perhaps the best way of understanding the still-life genre is by making still-life compositions.
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