Constructing a Painting (four-day workshop)
Adult Summer Workshop | Registration opens Monday, May 4, 2026 8:00 AM EDT
In this still-life class you will work from direct observation, and begin by studying compositional structures and strategies for starting off and building up a painting. Spending three sessions on each painting you’ll have ample time to dive into the fundamentals of painting. You’ll explore the importance of paint application, specifically focusing on glazing, velatura and scumble techniques and investigate the relationship between active fields and quiet fields of strokes and their influence on composition. Additionally, the class will examine the balance of values and colors and how this relationship is important to self-expression.
What you will learn:
1. How to set up a still life that provides expression as well as an opportunity to learn.
2. Considering the quality of light as a critical part of the painting
3. Understanding the relationship of light and shadow
4. The many possibilities of composition for personal expression
5. Seeing and mixing color with confidence.
OIL COLORS: Winsor & Newton or Rembrandt or Gamblin. I do not recommend student grade paints such as Winsor and Newton’s Winton or Utrecht brand paints.
• Ivory Black
• Ultramarine Blue
• Indian Red
• Yellow Ochre
• Cadmium Yellow
• Cadmium Red Light
• Chromium oxide green
• Sap Green
• Transparent Red Oxide
• Mixed White (combination of zinc and Titanium) or Titanium White
MEDIUM:
• Winsor and Newton’s “Liquin”
BRUSHES: Brushes should be a combination of bristle and sable or artificial sable brushes.
• Robert Simmons Signet bristle brushes, Filbert or Round shape #’s 6, 8, 10 & 12 – two of each
• Winsor & Newton Monarch Filbert series, #’s 4, 6 & 8 – two of each
• Monarch Round series, #’s, 2, 4 & 6 – two of each
PALETTE AND PALETTE CUPS:
• Either a “strip” palette made of sheets on a pad , or a wooden palette. Palette cups, which clip onto the palette and hold the medium and solvent.
SOLVENT:
• Mineral spirits, turpenoid or ‘Gamsol”
CANVASSES – PAINTING SURFACES
• Stretched canvas, cotton or linen or canvas boards. Suggested sizes, 12 x 16, 14 x 18, 16 x 20 18 x 24.
• PALETTE KNIFE: A palette knife is needed for scraping the palette.
• PAPER TOWELS
Paul DuSold
Paul duSold is a Philadelphia artist and instructor. He graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1985. He is known for oil paintings of human figures, portraits, and still lifes. His artwork, which he describes as “atmospheric representationalism” is influenced by sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian and Spanish painters. His paintings can be found in numerous public and private collections, and he has exhibited in a number of prestigious institutions including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Delaware Art Museum, Fleischer Art Memorial, Perkins Center for the Arts, Wayne Art Center, Ursinus College, and Michener Art. He has curated exhibitions at the Delaware Art Museum, Wayne Art Center, and Woodmere Art Museum. duSold has been a painting instructor for more than thirty years at various institutions including Wayne Art Center, the Delaware Art Museum, and Main Line Art Center. He continues to teach at Fleischer Art Memorial and Woodmere Art Museum. In his teaching, he emphasizes the formal qualities of painting; color, light and shadow, edge quality, tonal relationships.
https://www.pauldusold.com/