Oil painting workshops in Rolleston, thirty minutes from Christchurch. Each morning we take one real problem in colour and value and stay on it until it clicks, tutor at your shoulder, nobody copying a demo. You go home with the painting, and with the part that actually lasts: knowing how you got there.
Every convincing painting rests on one skill: seeing how light behaves on a surface. This series takes it apart a morning at a time, from a three-tube palette to a near-black still life. Take any one on its own. In sequence, they run light to dark by design.
Break free from relying on dozens of tubes by forcing unexpected colour harmonies.
What you will do
Three tubes plus titanium white, one still life. You push those pigments to their limit and mix a full range of darks, lights and mid-tones out of almost nothing.
What you will leave with
You stop reaching for convenience colours out of the tube, learn to mix the complex shades you actually see, and find how a tight palette pulls a whole painting into one harmony.
White objects are rarely actually white. Learn to paint light, not just pigment.
What you will do
A setup of white on white: a plaster bust, white eggs, draped linen. You build the whole study in warm and cool greys, holding back pure white until the final highlights.
What you will leave with
You leave able to read the temperature shifts and ambient colour hiding inside “white”, and to use warm against cool to push a form forward or let it fall back.
Shadows are not the absence of colour. Stop deadening your darks with brown and grey.
What you will do
One hard, single-source light and a setup built to throw colour into its shadows. You train your eye on the reflected hues that bleed into the core and cast shadows, the ones most painters flatten to brown.
What you will leave with
You break the habit of darkening with black, and leave able to put real colour into a shadow so the darks stay luminous and the painting reads as one light.
Move beyond standard lighting. Create profound depth with subtle value shifts.
What you will do
Dark objects on a black ground, one weak light. You work the narrow band of values that lifts a form off the dark behind it, glazing the shadows with transparent pigment instead of reaching for black.
What you will leave with
You leave able to draw an object out of near-total darkness, find the colours living inside the darks, and build depth from the smallest shifts in value and temperature.
§ 02 · The Setups
What you will paint from
Each Saturday turns on one still life, lit and arranged in the studio. Here is every setup beside its finished study, so you meet the problem before you pick up a brush. The photographs are demonstration setups, so the exact arrangement on the day may differ.
The Three-Colour ChallengeA Study in WhiteColour in the ShadowsInto the Dark
§ 03 · The Tutor
Hello, I’m Anton
Everything we work on, I’m still working on myself: colour in the darks, the whites inside white, atmosphere built from temperature. And I teach it the way I earned it, grounded in academic training and sharpened daily at my own easel, then passed on in order, step by step, beside you.
Rolleston-based, classically trained at Moscow’s School of Architecture and Design, with a diploma in academic drawing and painting. I came to oils from a career in digital 2D and 3D art, and it has been a decade-plus of plein air and studio work since. My paintings now hang in public and private collections overseas, and in private collections here in New Zealand. There’s a PhD buried in there too, though it has never once helped me mix a convincing green.
For several years now I’ve shared what I know through private tutoring and the occasional workshop for adults and kids, always from the foundations up: drawing, value, anatomy, no shortcuts. This series is that teaching distilled, the best of it packed into a few focused mornings, with nothing wasted.
Anton, plein air
Valley fogAtmosphere built from temperatureWildflowers in shadowColour living inside the darksWaterliliesThe many whites of a single flowerVan by the still waterReflected light and colour on waterBush edge, overcast lightMassed greens under a quiet sky
§ 04 · In Their Words
From my students
Some I teach one to one, others in workshops. This series is new this year, but the way I teach is not, and that is what they speak to: what it is like to have a tutor at your shoulder, and what begins to change in your own work because of it.
“
Colleagues now come to me to illustrate their papers, and a few have compared my work to Des Helmore's.
In zoology we work with small, optically transparent objects, and depend on biological drawing for scientific publications. Thanks to Anton's structured approach, I built a strong art foundation that allowed me to achieve considerable success in this area of my profession.
“
I even won the Great Kiwi Poster competition.
I was not very good at drawing before, but Anton taught me how to shade and paint different things, and it helped me become confident. Now I draw much better, and I make posters for my class that my friends really like.
“
She now spends her spare time drawing, and finds it genuinely fun.
His teaching is easy to follow and encouraging, and his feedback always helped Kiko improve. I recommend him to anyone starting out.
§ 05 · Questions
Sensibly answered
One morning. One painting. One season.
Reserve your easel before August fills.
Each morning is capped at seven painters, and each runs once. Take the full four-part series or pick the Saturdays that pull you. Every seat includes professional materials.
