COLOUR AND NARRATIVE
Transform a Reference Image into a Painting that Feels Entirely Your Own with Amy Dury!
COURSE OPENS OCTOBER 9TH – $169
Early Bird Price $139
Create More Than a Likeness—
Create a Story.
You may have a collection of reference photographs you love but feel unsure how to turn them into paintings that feel personal and expressive.
You may wonder:
Which reference should you choose?
How should you compose the image?
What colors will support the mood?
Which details should stay, and which can be changed or removed?
Painting is filled with choices. When you are unsure why you are making them, it can be easy to feel stuck before you begin—or lost somewhere in the middle.
Colour and Narrative was created to help you make thoughtful, confident choices as you develop a complete figurative painting from the ground up.
Colour and Narrative
From the First Idea to the Final Painting
In this course, artist Amy Dury will take you through her complete process for building a figurative painting from beginning to end. You will learn how to select a compelling reference, develop your composition, explore color possibilities, and build your painting through layers of acrylic and oil.
Most importantly, Amy will help you understand the choices behind each stage so you can approach your own paintings with greater clarity, confidence, and creative freedom.
In Colour and Narrative, you’ll learn how to:
✔ Choose inspiring reference images with strong painting potential.
✔ Develop a compelling composition.
✔ Create expressive color stories using a limited palette.
✔ Use preliminary studies to plan the painting.
✔ Build a figurative painting through layers of acrylic and oil.
✔ Make thoughtful changes as the painting evolves.
Learn not only what Amy does, but why she makes each creative decision—and how to apply those ideas to your own work.
Course Description
CHOOSE A REFERENCE
Discover what Amy looks for in a reference image and how subject, gesture, light, and mood can inspire a meaningful painting.
PLAN THE COMPOSITION
Learn how to crop, position, and adjust your reference to create a stronger, more engaging composition.
DEVELOP A COLOR STORY
Explore how Amy creates an expressive color story and uses a limited palette to establish harmony, atmosphere, and emotion.
GET TO KNOW YOUR SUBJECT
Use drawing and monochromatic studies to better understand the shapes, values, and structure of your subject before beginning the final painting.
BUILD THE PAINTING
Follow Amy as she builds a complete figurative painting through layers of acrylic and oil, allowing color, texture, and form to develop.
RESPOND TO YOUR WORK
Learn how to thoughtfully adjust colors, simplify details, and follow your intuition as the painting evolves and its story emerges.
What Else….
This course is for artists who:
What is included:
Designed for artists of ALL levels for just $169.
Meet Amy Dury.
Your guide on this journey.
As a painter I extract figures from photographs from the pre-digital age as a starting point.
These can be found family photographs or home movies. Watching these personal films I instinctively stop them on frames that resonate. The images I am most often drawn to related to peoples roles in society, the hierarchies and dynamics of power.
I paint with a strong idea of colour to begin. I use both oil and acrylic paint, alongside charcoal and pencil drawings. My background as a printmaker informs my use of layers and structure, yet I allow the process to move and evolve the work as it is constructed. Loose and textured painterly marks exist alongside more precise detail. A strong grounding in portrait and figure drawing gives freedom to describe or suggest.
Looking back into our recent past is an act of remembering and nostalgic mis-remembering, with photographs and film becoming the vehicle which constructs stories about ourselves. Figures are often rewritten or falling from clear view, and I use digital processes to reconstruct the scenes and suggest colour themes. Our history instructs, seduces and tethers us, and I look to use paint to examine these emotive memories which reflect current themes and tensions in contemporary life.
Love notes from students…
Bring Your Painting’s Story to Life
A reference image may provide the initial spark, but your choices are what transform it into a painting.
Join Amy as she takes you behind the scenes of her complete creative process. Learn how to plan thoughtfully, use color expressively, paint responsively, and make the decisions that allow an image to become something personal, layered, and entirely your own.