Kathleen Hudson: Mastering the Large Canvas - Scaling up from small studies

Here’s Kathleen Hudson’s Step-By-Step Blueprint For Scaling Up To Larger Canvases With Confidence!

If the thought of pulling a large blank canvas up onto your easel fills you with excitement and anxiety, then you’re going to LOVE this video.

In Mastering the Large Canvas, renowned artist Kathleen Hudson, known for her luminous and atmospheric landscapes, shares her signature blueprint for scaling up successfully every time.

Throughout the in-depth chapters, you’ll discover Kathleen’s meticulous step-by-step approach that breaks down the complex process into easily digestible stages:

●      From the crucial preparatory work of asking key guiding questions and creating thumbnail value studies…

●      To establishing a strong foundational design and composition through an initial transparent underpainting…

●      Building up the elements of the painting from background to foreground while maintaining unified color harmony…

●      …and finally, assessing the work as a whole to make those key final adjustments that take it from great to extraordinary.

Along the way, Kathleen generously shares hard-earned wisdom from creating her own masterful large-scale works, like:

●      The 7 critical questions to ask yourself before starting any large painting…

●      4 things to keep in mind to create a strong foundational design…

●      Her unique underpainting technique, inspired by watercolors, for establishing a luminous glow…

●      Color mixing strategies for achieving harmonic variety and a sense of light traveling through the atmosphere…

●      Thoughtful self-critique methods for improving your work without losing the freshness of your brushwork…

●      Practical tips for tackling the logistical challenges of working large…

In this video, you’ll get to see behind the scenes of how she created her famous piece Wetlands Near Savannah, which graced the cover of The Artist’s Magazine.

So if you’ve always felt called to paint on a grander scale, but have feared getting lost on a bigger canvas, this is your chance to learn from a true master!

Chapter Outline:

Intro & Materials:

Overview of what you’ll learn in this comprehensive guide to scaling up from small studies to large landscape paintings. Award-winning artist Kathleen Hudson shows how to break down the intimidating process of working on larger canvases into manageable stages. She’ll share her complete materials list, including specific paint colors, brush selections, and surface choices, explaining how each contributes to her successful painting process. Proper preparation of materials ensures you’re ready to paint with confidence and achieve the best results.

Preparatory Work

Learn why preparation is “the most important piece of your creative process.” Kathleen reveals her 7 key questions to ask yourself before starting, how to choose the right reference materials, and 4 crucial elements for creating a strong design. She’ll demonstrate these concepts using her painting Wetlands Near Savannah — which appeared on the cover of The Artist’s Magazine — showing you how proper preparation leads to successful larger paintings.

Underpainting

Discover Kathleen’s unique transparent underpainting approach, influenced by her watercolor background and John Singer Sargent’s techniques. Learn how this stage frees you to focus on design using transparent, movable color without getting overwhelmed by details. She’ll show you how to use a grid for accurate scaling, demonstrate proper paint consistency, and reveal why this foundation stage is crucial for creating paintings filled with life and vitality.

Color Mixing

Master the art of pre-mixing colors to achieve harmony and save time while painting larger works. Kathleen shares her expertise in mixing natural greens (drawing from her Kentucky roots), creating color vibration for atmospheric effects, and managing paint consistency. Learn two different approaches to organizing your painting process — section-by-section or all-over — and discover how proper color preparation leads to more successful large-scale paintings.

Block in the Sky

Create dynamic skies that serve as more than just backgrounds. Learn to paint subtle transitions in value and color, master creative ways to add interest without distraction, and understand how the sky’s reflections impact the entire painting. This in-depth sky tutorial reveals techniques for painting around clouds, creating atmospheric depth, and establishing a strong foundation for your landscape.

Bring the Sky to a Finish

Continue developing the sky with advanced techniques for creating subtle transitions, atmospheric effects, and more. Learn critical tips for avoiding mud, managing edges, and making thoughtful adjustments. Kathleen shows how each brushstroke affects the whole painting, teaching you to be mindful and intentional with every mark to achieve a beautifully developed sky.

Build Distance & Midground

Learn to create convincing distance and atmosphere where sky meets land. Kathleen demonstrates how imperfection in the horizon line creates a more painterly feel, techniques for blending sky and land seamlessly, and methods for incorporating varied textures. She shares her personal story about learning to paint realistically without getting caught up in details, drawing from a valuable lesson she learned studying Rembrandt’s work.

Build the Foreground

Master the techniques for creating dynamic foregrounds in large-scale paintings. Learn to paint trees without excessive detail, capture reflections in water, and apply confident brushwork using Kathleen’s counterintuitive approach. Discover why black can be valuable on your palette and how to create pathways through your painting using reflections and thoughtful color placement.

Reassess the Painting

Learn to evaluate your work critically and make necessary adjustments to edges, values, and compositional elements. Kathleen teaches how to maintain the freshness of gestural brushwork while refining your painting. She explains how to tie different elements together while keeping the whole painting harmonious, and shares tips for working on tacky paint effectively.

Final Adjustments

Learn Kathleen’s final touches for bringing a large landscape painting to completion. She shares how to think of painting challenges like puzzles with multiple solutions, making the process more enjoyable and less intimidating. Discover her six essential principles for mastering large landscapes: contemplating your subject, creating compelling designs, becoming a good self-critic, painting what you love, getting outside often, and understanding your artistic purpose.

Meet Your Instructor, Kathleen Hudson!

Kathleen B. Hudson is an award-winning artist renowned for her luminous, atmospheric landscape paintings. Her work masterfully captures the dynamic play of light and showcases her signature style of emphatic, confident brushwork.

She is a Signature Member of the Plein Air Painters of America and a Fellow in the American Society of Marine Artists, and her paintings have garnered widespread recognition. 

In 2017, she received the Grand Prize in the 6th Annual PleinAir Salon for her painting Bright Morning, Timberline Falls, which appeared on the July 2017 cover of PleinAir Magazine. That same month, Southwest Art named Kathleen an “Artist to Watch.”

Kathleen’s passion for painting began early, starting with oils at age 12. She honed her skills at Harvard University before moving to Colorado, where she now balances her time between plein air painting and creating larger studio works.

With her unique background and artistic vision, Kathleen brings a wealth of expertise to this course. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, and she has consistently won top awards at national plein air events. 

As an instructor, Kathleen is known for her ability to guide students to find their own creative voice while providing tangible, actionable techniques for improvement.

This is your chance to learn from a highly experienced instructor!