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COURSE 1
AN INTRODUCTION TO BOTANICAL PAINTING
This is a comprehensive introduction to the increasingly popular art of botanical painting. It gives students a thorough understanding of the aims of the botanical artist, as well as the means to start creating their own ‘plant portraits’.
After a brief explanation of the context and historical traditions of botanical art, you will learn the fundamental principles of accurate observation and drawing through a series of short, manageable drawing and tonal exercises. Watercolour techniques are explained step-by-step, together with useful advice on equipment.
The atmosphere is relaxed and encouraging, allowing you to work at your own pace.
Learning is reinforced with practical demonstrations, and one-to-one tuition effectively ensures that you leave with the confidence and understanding to make rapid progress on your own.
Courses 2 and 3 concentrate on the areas which people find they need more help with: drawing and composition, and watercolour techniques and colour mixing. These two courses focus on the skills and knowledge you will need to take your work to the next level.
COURSE 2
HOW TO DRAW MORE EFFECTIVELY AND THE ART OF COMPOSITION
Drawing skills, whilst probably useful to all artists, are essential for the botanical painter. Observational drawing and pencil work is vital in becoming a competent draughtsman, and nature studies are one of the best ways of learning and making progress in drawing skills.
You will learn the fundamental principles of drawing from observation, how to measure accurately, and how to create perspective using scale and tone. As a group we also explore the important but often neglected art of composition, discussing the wide range of approaches in style and interpretation.
Students work at their own pace through a series of structured exercises, and you should easily achieve a number of studies, or a small painting, by the end of the course.
This course is suitable for those with little or no experience in drawing, as well as those who wish to refine their drawing technique.
COURSE 3
WATERCOLOUR TECHNIQUES AND COLOUR MIXING
Watercolour is the perfect medium for capturing the intensity and vibrancy of nature’s colours. Through a series of short manageable exercises you will learn how to lay, grade and blend colour washes, how to build up tonal range through
wet-in-wet and wet-on-dry techniques, and the brushstroke skills of stippling, hatching and lifting.
You will also learn to identify and mix colours, building up your own library of colours and developing the ability to see and use colour accurately and confidently.
Throughout the two days, practical advice and demonstrations will illustrate how to create strong 3D images in watercolour using colour, tone and different painting techniques, and give you the technical know-how to be able to mix your own colours accurately and effectively.
COURSE 4
FOUR DAYS OF PAINTING
This is a 4-day intensive course for those who wish to have some longer painting time with an experienced tutor and to produce some new work. The shared concentration and interaction of fellow painters is always enjoyable, encouraging and worthwhile, and four unbroken days of individual guidance and tuition should greatly benefit the experienced painter as well as the more tentative beginner.
In all the courses, class sizes are deliberately kept small (maximum class size 10) to allow for individual one-to-one tuition. Courses fill up rapidly, so early booking is advised. The courses run from 10am until 4pm each day, and include a simple and delicious kitchen lunch.
All courses are suitable for beginners as well as those with more experience.
