Watercolour Painting

Artist and teacher Eleanor Amiradaki will facilitate the class to create a series of botanical watercolours from photographs and still life. The group will be exploring a variety of watercolour techniques and learning colour mixing, blending and creating tonal variations and unique compositions. Referencing the works of contemporary watercolour artists to expand the possibilities of working in this beautiful medium. Demonstrations of technique and 1:1 guidance will be in every session.

WEEK 1

The basics – Explore the basics of watercolour including set up, brushes & colour mixing to creating different tonal variations with your watercolours. This will open the possibilities of what you can do without needing an extensive watercolour kit! We will be looking at a range of traditional and contemporary artists fr some creative inspiration and concept development. 

WEEK 2

Choose your subject! Building the foundation of our project we will choose a range of botanical images to work from as inspiration. In this lesson we will begin sampling colours, mixing a cohesive palette and learning some foundational techniques such as applying wet on wet or wet on dry. 

WEEK 3

Composition – This week we will have a better idea of the direction we will like to take our series of work and ways to approach it. We will look at sketching our botanicals, incorporating simple line work and building interesting compositions and working in multiples/series. 

WEEK 4

Exploring the details – this week we will implement the skills developed to build our body of work. We will focus on how to incorporate detailed elements to enhance and highlight elements of our work. 

WEEK 5

Finishing touches – by the end of this lesson we should have a complete small series of watercolour colour works. This is an opportunity to reflect on the works in the class and enjoy our beautiful botanicals!

MATERIALS LIST

• Watercolours paints (tubes or block set is recommended) Minimal Palette – this should include a selection of both a warm and cool red, blue, yellow. Recommended Extra’s: Van Dyke Brown, Naples yellow, titanium white, Ivory black, Burnt Umber, burnt Sienna. 
• Roll of absorbent towel & masking tape  
• Pencils, kneadable eraser
• A plastic watercolour palette 
• Coloured watercolour pencils
• Any smooth or medium watercolour paper with a minimum of 185gsm (size of paper is up to you and can be cut down to suit).