.'TREE OF LIFE' Project launch in Birzebuggia on 19th March, 2008. Click here to read report and view photos
	..View the wonderful work of our junior students: JUNIOR ART GALLERY 1 JUNIOR ART GALLERY 2

Your tutor for Paint Malta Courses is international artist Caroline S. Lawrence.Trained at St. Martin's College, London, Caroline has worked extensively as a professional artist throughout the Middle East for over 15 years and recently decided to return to her native home island of Malta. You can view her artwork on her websites:

www.cs-lawrence.com
www.hlawrenceart.com

Having run several successful painting courses in Bahrain, she decided to set up a similar scheme in Malta. Her approach to teaching art is that there is a creative impulse in everyone and all that's needed for it to find expression is to stop feeling intimidated or unsure of oneself. All too often people get put off from exploring their creativity because they are not sure how to use art materials; they assume there's a right and wrong way of painting or drawing. To a certain extent, basic understanding of a particular medium is required simply because it helps one to manipulate the process of conveying an idea or image onto paper or canvas. But the rest is up to you, or more accurately, the rest is in you.
In art, there's no right or wrong way-there's only YOUR way.

The courses we offer consist of a minimum of 8 weeks tuition. Each weekly class is for 90 minutes or 2 hours.Total tuition time in one course amounts to 12 hours. Classes are held on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10:00-11:30am and 5:00-6.30pm. Times can vary according to the group's preferences. The courses cover development of drawing skills using various media as well as painting in watercolour, acrylic and mixed media.

Watercolour is the perfect medium for capturing the brilliant mediterranean light and the delightful tones of Malta's sandstone buildings. This is because watercolour is transparent and gives a beautiful translucent effect when applied to white paper. However, it is not a very forgiving medium because mistakes cannot easily be corrected. Using this medium is perhaps the one time where knowledge of and familiarity with the "how to's" is essential.

You will be taught how to mix colours without muddying them; how to put more "punch" into your painting by understanding complementary colours; how to use composition to make your painting more eye-catching;how to work around mistakes and even incorporate into your picture the unexpected surprises that watercolours often produce.

Acrylics are far easier to use but the only drawback in using them is that they dry fast so you dont have as much time to mix and manipulate colours like you do with watercolour. However, the great thing about acrylics is that you can water them down to apply thin washes as well as use them thickly to produce impasto effects. You can mix colours with a variety of texturized pastes and also use different tools to create marks which produce interesting effects.

You will be taught how to layer acrylic colours; how to mix colours and use various mixed media techniques.

Drawing is, in Caroline's opinion, an essential skill which enables an artist to tackle any subject confidently. And working in monotone gives you a solid grounding in understanding the relationship between shapes and tones. You will be taught how to translate 3-D objects onto a 2-D surface based on the simple rules of perspective.

Art materials

Many times a budding artist has been put off pursuing their interest in painting because they cannot seem to get the desired results in their work and its often because they are using poor quality materials. We now supply products for the courses from the vast range of excellent quality Faber Castell materials. I've put together a list of recommended materials for you to bring which can be printed out here.