GSP157 Western Painting (Oil)

I remembered that I took on this module with my friend and wishing that we would be in the same class together. Sadly we did not. The class was held in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) school instead of Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). I was glad because it was definitely nearer to my own place.

Nonetheless, I was super excited for this module because I still prefer Art over theory modules. I feel that it is more interacting and fun! I remember during the first class, we were give a bag of the painting materials which consists of Turpentine, Linseed stand oil and more. We are required to do 2 canvas of painting. One of it was still life painting and the other was to paint a scenery view.

We were told to do a sketch of the still life shown on the left. It was challenging for me because there are many objects layering and it was tricky when I need to create that shadow. As this module can be taken by everyone even you do not have the art ba The lecturer was patient enough and guide us through one by one.

After about 5 lessons, we finished our still-life painting and mine was displayed the one on the right as it was one of the better ones. The verbal feedback that my lecturer gave me was that I was being too careful with my painting and resulted the painting to be a little flat. After completing the still-life painting, I had more confident with my next scenery painting and was pretty looking forward to it.

On the 6th lesson, we were asked to choose any scenery and I decided to go with the one shown on the left. This whole piece was rather a piece that needs to play around with different shades of colours. For example, the hill that is in green, I had to show to play around with some darker and lighter shades. Same goes to the waves and the mountain behind.

I would say that the scenery view is easier to paint as I was getting used of it after a few rounds of practice for the still-life painting. But the challenging part is where I need to get my colours right by mixing a few colours to get what I want. And again, my lecturer was there to teach on how to get to the colours I want and we played around with it.

Not to forget, I have made some friends in the class and we would sometimes help each other out if we are having difficulty to get to the colours we want and also critique each other's work. I think it is extremely helpful when someone critique my work so I would know where and how to work on it to achieve better results.

Overall, I have gained new skills and knowledge. This module enables me to explore and experiment with the oil painting techniques. Learning how to value the contrast of light and shade and understanding the colour theory such as intensity, value, hue and the temperature of colours.