Light and Dark: Developing sketches into abstract paintings

Join us at The Green Howards Museum on June 23, 2026 at 10:00 AM (BST) for a fun and creative session! We'll explore how to turn simple sketches into bold, abstract paintings. Bring your ideas and get ready to play with light and dark in a relaxed, inspiring atmosphere.

Details:

This one day course with Kane Cunningham will explore the qualities of chalk pastels and the technique of chiaroscuro. The morning session will experiment with the drawing techniques on black sugar paper. A still life constructed from artefacts offered from the extensive Green Howards museum collection will be the basis of study.

The afternoon session will develop these studies into an abstract painting using either watercolour or acrylic paint.

Chiaroscuro is an Italian artistic technique, translating to "light-dark," that uses intense, dramatic contrasts between light and shadow to create three-dimensional volume, depth, and mood in drawings and paintings.

Equipment needed and not included in the price: chalk pastels, rubbers, black sugar paper, paint, easel if you have one and painting paper, canvas or painting boards.

Refreshments throughout the day and a buffet lunch are included in the price.

Bio of Kane Cunningham:

Kane Cunningham born in Manchester in 1961 first shot to worldwide fame in 2009 when he bought a house on the edge of a cliff in Scarborough for £3000 to create a work of art. It was a bungalow destined to fall into the sea due to erosion. The council enforced a demolition order in 2013 due to concerns over danger to the public, it cost another £3000 to knock it down.

An art lecturer for 35 years he retired in 2017 to paint full time. He exhibits his work in galleries nationally and travels extensively across the UK painting and living in a VW camper van.

He is also the co-director of an environmental and arts festival called Big Ideas By The Sea in Scarborough.

Presently he is working on a new project that follows the River Wharfe starting at Langstrothdale. Kane said, ‘Wharfedale offers some spectacular scenery to paint which inspired J.M.W. Turner between 1808 and 1824. It is a landscape unchanged over 200 years and so a view Turner would be familiar with today.’

Kane said, ‘The aim of the short courses is to offer techniques which can be applied to a range of subjects from still life to landscape painting. Drawing is a fundamental aspect of composition and a key building block in all great paintings. The skills we intend to develop will help beginners or more advanced painters become more confident in their work.’

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Host or Publisher The Green Howards Museum, Richmond