Laura Smith – Painting Still Life with Three Palettes (Online); Mondays, November 24-December 8, 2025

Dates: Monday, November 24-December 8, 2025
Time: 9:30-12:00 AM Pacific Time, 12:30-3:00 PM Eastern Time, 5:30-8:00 PM London Time
Level: All
Medium: Oil, acrylic or watercolor – Laura will work in oil

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Join Laura Smith for an illuminating online painting class that provides you with an instant way to surprise yourself. Working from your own still life arrangement (preferably one you can replicate each week), you will use a series of different limited palettes of colours that will produce excitingly varied results.

Using a very limited palette requires the artist to make cunning equivalents to color relationships as color matches are often impossible. One advantage is that you are more able to create not only harmony across the picture but a very particular light and atmosphere.

By choosing three contrasting palettes, you can create vastly different results automatically without the need to alter your own natural way of working. Laura will demonstrate with a different palette each week and lists suggestion below but you are welcome to select paint combinations from your own stock. There is no right or wrong here. However, when choosing paints, it is a good idea to think in terms of a white, a yellow, a red and a blue. For example, in the classic Zorn Palette, black acts as a blue.

Laura’s encouraging teaching style centres around precise color mixing. Much time will be spent on slow, careful mixing with a palette knife. Color is a huge aspect of painting and Laura’s enthusiasm is infectious.