Watercolour Workshop - Seascapes

Watercolour Workshop for Beginners - Seascapes

Art is a great activity to encourage mindfulness, relaxation and of course creativity.

This term we are going to run three watercolour workshops for beginners. These workshops can be enjoyed as either stand alone workshops, or you can enjoy the continuity and join each workshop in turn.

During these workshops we will be exploring and experimenting sketching with watercolour pencils and also painting with watercolours.

Watercolour pencils are perfect to use because they are adaptable, clean and portable. Though they are similar to normal pencils, it is when you add water that their uniqueness appears. When learning how to use watercolour pencils, we will be experimenting with lots of different techniques on scrap paper and when confident we will be using them on our finished sketches.

We will learn the basic skills and techniques of watercolour pencil sketching, including crosshatching, brushing out colour, brushstrokes, blotting, wet on dry, dry one wet, dry on dry, grading colour, learning how to achieve light and shade. We will also cover the rules of perspective, composition and texture that will help us in finalising our watercolour pieces.

Watercolours have a translucent, light quality and are great to experiment with brushstrokes and details.

The important tools for watercolour painting are a set of watercolour pencils, sketchpad, paints, brushes suitable for watercolour, a pencil sharpener, a jar for water, a palette, a board, watercolour paper, tissues for blotting your brush and a putty eraser. The paints are available in pans and tubes. Tubes can be useful when painting large areas, whereas pans are smaller and easier to transport. It is crucial to have a good quality watercolour paper when doing the final pieces because watercolour paint makes a feature of the paper they are painted on.

We will learn how to hold a brush and experiment with top techniques like highlights using tissue paper, wet-on-wet, achieving a gradient effect, using a dry brush and building up on light and shade, hatching, crosshatching and solid shading.

Together we will learn the basics of sketching and painting with watercolour, most of all we will try to have fun by exploring different watercolour techniques.

Depending from your budget, you can either purchase your art materials from the professional art shop Goslings in Sudbury, or you can find more affordable ones in the Works or Poundland.

According to your budget you can purchase your art materials from the professional art shop Goslings in Sudbury, or more affordable ones, including sets of watercolour pencils, paints, watercolour paper and sketchbooks can be found in The Works, Poundland, the local supermarkets, and of course from online retailers.

Please note we run all our courses based on a minimum number of participants.

If you are no longer able to attend the class please contact the team at your earliest convenience. Cancellations received within 48 hours of the class start time are non-refundable.

If any of the courses you wish to attend are full or you cannot make the date, please let us know so that we can register your interest and let you know of future opportunities or add your name to a reserve list. You can contact the team on sudbury@easterneducationgroup.ac.uk or telephone 01787 880619.