Tom Byrne

Tom J. Byrne teaches painting in Florence, Italy. He is from Ireland and has worked in the visual arts all his life. He studied with various artists in Ireland, France and Italy.

He now teaches landscape, urban painting and figure drawing with the Florence Studio of Borgo santi Apostoli and is the coordinator for the British Institute of Florence’s life drawing
program.

In Ireland Tom lectured in the National College of Art and Design on the subject of illustration and provide student classes for Creative Education Services. He established the life drawing club and exhibition group in the United Arts Club in Dublin, which continues to this day.
His exhibitions in Ireland consisted of the annual life drawing shows in the UAC,

Tom moved to Paris in 2003 and managed the Greenlane Gallery for 3 years, organising exhibitions and managing artists. He then became sales executive with the Galerie DDG for 2 years. He also studied with various amazing artists during this time including Jorge Hermle, Shane Wolf, Thimy Leab and Pierre le Goariguer and spent 2 years studying paint effects and manufacturing with L'atelier Des Peintres En Decors.

In 2013 Shane Wolf recommended studying with the artist John Michael Angel in Florence who had been a student of Pietro Annigoni. Tom took him at his word and moved to Florence. The intentionhad been to remain in Italy for 2/3 years and then go to Ireland but a succession of events convinced him to remain there. After his studies he initially lectured in landscape painting methods with Tuscany Plein Air. Since then he has been teaching with the Florence Studio, specifically landscape and urban painting en plein air and figure drawing. He's also the life drawing program coordinator with the British Institute of Florence and hosts events weekly.

About Tom's Class

Tom says

‘Watercolor is the subject of this workshop and it’s a beautiful media to work with, always inspiring. It demands simplicity and that we get out of it’s way rather than try to control it

too much. To get out it’s way it’s necessary to have a good grasp of the basics and we’ll be covering them. One is understanding the nature of watercolor paint itself, the tools, the

papers, brushes and methods of application, of which there are many’

There are examples of paintings and commissions on his website.

‘There is also the structure of the face and various ways that a portrait can be arranged, from composition to lighting. There are various very understandable methods employed in

composing the proportions and you’ll be surprised by how easy it is to grasp. We will have a human model to sketch from and will also use methods employed by Leonardo da Vinci

as well as more modern structural approaches to form a likeness. How to light a portrait not just to make the features attractive but also to reduce how much work you have to do.

It’s really fun and easy yet very interesting and full of surprises’.

The workshop will include a study of divine proportions, sight size, watercoloring and painting portraits from imagination. Students need no prior experience with watercolor painting. We will be going through all the materials, brushes and papers needed. Everything is provided and if you have time there are also be a number of techniques designed to exercise the creative side of the brain & speed up the drawing and painting process. At the end it should be easy to do a watercolor portrait in 10 minutes without trying too hard.