The Foundations of Expressive Painting Course

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This course is delivered via Google Drive rather than directly through Big Cartel. After purchasing, I'll personally email you your access link within a few hours (and usually much sooner). If you purchase overnight, I'll send it as soon as I'm back online.
Thank you for your patience—I can't wait to share the course with you!

Foundations of Expressive Painting

Learn to create expressive portraits and figures with confidence through a deeper understanding of colour, anatomy, drawing, and painting.

Over the past decade, I've built an international audience around my figurative artwork and sold paintings to collectors around the world. In this course, I'm sharing the foundations that underpin my own practice: the principles of colour, anatomy, observation, and artistic decision-making that allow an artist to move beyond simply copying a reference photo and start creating truly expressive work.

Foundations of Expressive Painting is a comprehensive introduction to figurative art, designed for artists who want to strengthen their understanding of drawing and painting while developing their own artistic voice.

Working in acrylics, oils, or charcoal, you'll learn the core skills that can be applied to portraits, figures, and almost any representational subject. Through a series of in-depth lessons and real-time demonstrations, I'll guide you through my complete process, from your first colour mixtures to finished portrait and figure paintings.

Along the way, you'll see not only the successes, but also the corrections, adjustments, and problem-solving that happen during the creation of a painting. My goal is not simply to show you what to paint, but to help you understand why.

Inside the Course

Colour Theory Made Simple

Learn how to mix a huge range of colours using a simple limited palette. You'll gain a practical understanding of the colour wheel, skin tones, neutral colours, saturation, and how to create rich darks without relying on black paint.

Painting Individual Features

Build confidence by studying the individual components of a portrait. Through dedicated lessons on the eyes, nose, and mouth, you'll learn the anatomy, structure, and colour relationships that bring features to life.

Creating Expressive Portraits

Follow a complete portrait painting from start to finish while learning facial anatomy, proportion, colour mixing, values, hair painting, and the subtle decisions that help maintain expression and character throughout the process.

Drawing and Painting the Figure

Develop a stronger understanding of the human figure through a full-length figure painting. Learn proportion, construction, anatomy, negative space, reflected light, and how to simplify complex forms into manageable shapes.

Charcoal Portrait Drawing

Discover how to create expressive charcoal portraits using value structure, anatomy, edge control, negative space, and a full range of tonal contrasts.

Studio Skills and Materials

Learn how to stretch and prepare your own canvases, understand essential materials, and build a practical foundation for your artistic practice.

What You'll Receive

• Over 70 video lessons
• Portrait painting demonstrations
• Figure painting demonstrations
• Colour theory instruction
• Anatomy lessons
• Reference photographs
• Supply lists and materials guidance
• Downloadable resources
• Lifetime access

Who This Course Is For?

This course is ideal for artists who want to:

• Improve their understanding of colour, anatomy, and form
• Paint more expressive portraits and figures
• Build confidence in acrylics, oils, or charcoal
• Move beyond copying photographs and understand artistic decision-making
• Develop strong foundational skills that can be applied to any subject

By the end of the course, you'll have a solid understanding of the principles behind expressive painting and the confidence to apply them to your own artwork.