Painting: Abstract

Through the lens of 20th-century modernist movements—such as De Stijl, Abstract Expressionism, and the works of Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock—you’ll gain insight into the evolution of abstraction. Each class begins with a brief look at influential artists and ideas, providing inspiration and context for your own practice. From colour fields and hard-edge painting to contemporary techniques, you’ll learn to balance structure with spontaneity and embrace non-representational approaches.

What You’ll Gain:

• Confidence in creating structured and spontaneous abstract compositions
• Skills in colour mixing, matching, and the use of acrylic paints and mediums
• An understanding of space, scale, and design within your canvas
• Techniques for working with colour fields, shapes, patterns, and textures
• Methods for expressing ideas through non-representational painting

Whether you’re new to painting or looking to expand your creative horizons, this course offers a dynamic environment to experiment, express, and refine your artistic voice.

The ability to create a structure, develop spontaneity, discover individual methods of composition, colour mixing and matching
An understanding of the use of space within the scale of your paintings
An understanding of the use of colour fields, shapes, patterns and design within a given canvas
An understanding of the use of acrylic paints and acrylic mediums

Heidi Knoepfli

Heidi is an experienced visual artist and has been teaching art for well over 30 years in Melbourne and England. She holds a Graduate Diploma of Education form Melbourne University a Bachelor of Art from Monash University and a Masters of Fine Art from RMIT Melbourne.

Heidi has a diverse and ongoing art practice in St Kilda encompassing painting drawing installation and performative art. She has exhibited widely with over 70 exhibitions to her credit, winning several art prizes and artist in residencies. Heidi has been published in severals journals and is collections here and in Switzerland, Holland, Germany, South Africa + the UK.

Please bring to class:

• Tubes of acrylic paints in the following colours: red, blue, green, yellow, black, white.
• 2 plastic spatulas
• 4 brushes – a selection of round, flat, etc. – synthetic or bristle
• 4 painting boards (20 x 30cm). Please make sure you purchase these in centimetres not inches.
• Palette & plastic jars or similar size containers (empty)
• Rags
• 2B pencil

Additional materials will be advised at the first class.

Notification of a course cancellation will be provided at least 48 hours before the course commencement date. We recommend purchasing your materials only after you have received email confirmation that your course is proceeding as scheduled. Every effort is made to ensure courses proceed as planned to avoid disappointment.