Join Tanja for an intensive four half-day oil painting workshop exploring the fascinating challenge of painting fabric folds and creating the illusion of soft, three-dimensional material.

Fabric can appear deceptively simple to paint, but its folds provide a wonderful opportunity to explore how light, shadow, colour and edges work together to create the illusion of form. Over four consecutive sessions, you’ll develop a painting progressively, learning how to build depth and luminosity through a considered sequence of layers.

The workshop follows a clear four-stage process, with each day introducing a new stage of the painting.

Day 1 – Underpainting

We’ll begin by establishing the composition and mapping the main shapes and tonal structure of the fabric onto the canvas. The underpainting will provide a foundation for the subsequent layers, helping you establish the overall design and relationships before developing the detail.

Use a viewfinder to establish exactly which part of the fabric to focus on.

Day 2 – Transparent Shadows

We’ll focus on creating depth and turning the folds through the careful application of transparent shadow layers. You’ll explore how transparent colour can build rich, atmospheric shadows while allowing the underlying painting to remain visible.

Day 3 – Mid-Tones

With the main shadows established, we’ll introduce the mid-tones and begin to develop the volume and character of the fabric. You’ll explore how subtle changes in tone and colour can describe the way fabric turns, overlaps and catches the light.

Day 4 – Highlights

The final stage brings the painting to life through the addition of highlights and carefully considered accents. We’ll explore how to use lighter tones, edges and selective detail to describe the direction and quality of light and create a convincing sense of form.

Throughout the workshop, you’ll learn to look closely at the relationship between light and shadow, rather than simply copying individual colours. You’ll discover how the transitions between tones, the softness or sharpness of an edge, and the placement of highlights can all contribute to the illusion of folds and three-dimensional space.

The workshop is designed as a focused painting experience, with each day building directly on the previous session. By the end of the four days, you will have developed a complete fabric study while gaining a deeper understanding of how to construct form and luminosity in oil paint.

Key Benefits

• Learn a structured approach to painting convincing fabric folds in oils.
• Understand how underpainting, transparent shadows, mid-tones and highlights work together to build a painting.
• Develop a stronger understanding of light, shadow and tonal relationships.
• Explore how edges and transitions can describe the softness, structure and movement of fabric.
• Learn how to create the illusion of three-dimensional form through layered oil painting.
• Develop greater confidence in building a painting progressively rather than trying to resolve everything at once.
• Complete a focused fabric study over four consecutive sessions.
• Gain techniques that can be applied to other subjects, including clothing, still life and figurative painting.

Ideal For

Artists who have some previous experience working with oil paint and would like to develop their understanding of light, form and layered painting techniques.

The workshop is particularly suited to painters who would like to explore how to create convincing three-dimensional form and depth, while developing greater confidence in working through a painting in stages.

Previous experience with oil painting is required, as the workshop will focus on the specific techniques involved in painting fabric rather than introducing the fundamental properties and processes of working with oils.

Materials Provided

Essential painting materials will be provided for the workshop. Students are welcome to bring their own preferred oil paints and brushes if they have them.

Stretched canvas is available to buy from the school.