Robert conceived and developed the 5 C’s of painting in response to the need for a logical step by step approach to painting any subject in any medium. It is not a painting style but an analytical tool that makes learning to paint easy and fun by providing a structure for incremental development of your painting skills and style.

It has since been presented to hundreds of aspiring painters and has proved to be stunningly successful method of teaching anyone to paint or improve their paintings out of all recognition.

Concept is concerned with answering the question, What do I want to say in this painting? It is concerned with creating a mood, eliciting an emotion from the viewer or connecting with a treasured memory of a place or person. The difference between great paintings and lesser paintings is that the great paintings are always based on a clear concept.

Composition, contrast and colour are the tools that painters have to present the concept and answers the question, How am I going to say it?

Composition is about picture design and drawing. You will learn how to design a successful painting and how to draw quickly and accurately using the 'GMD' system.

Contrast uses tonal values to create an impact in a painting by pitching light against dark. We will use one colour to produce a tonal scale and use the scale and the tonal layering technique to produce a monochrome landscape painting.

Colour is best tackled first using a limited palette of just three colours. We shall learn a lot about colour mixing using these three colours and we will convert our mono-painting into a full watercolour painting

Completion answers the question, When do I know the painting is finished? Many paintings are ruined by not stopping at the right point. Completion completes the circle by bringing us back to concept. A painting is finished when we have said what we want to say.

Whilst I am primarily a watercolour landscape painter the 5C’s is a generic system that enables me to comment on paintings of any subject in any medium.

A book and DVD entitled ‘The 5 C’s of Painting’ will be available shortly. Watch this space.

For an example of the 5C’s in action click here.