Welcome to 'Advancing Tone, Value and Colour' - this section will give you all the background on the course, and you can preview the introduction videos to see exactly what you're getting yourself in for before you buy the course.

Check out the FAQ sections here on things like posting your art, video quality and asking questions and don't forget to download the handout. It's your key to the whole course!

This is a space for your own reflection - so you can look back at your answers when you have finished and see just how far you have come.

I'll share with you my progress, and I'd love to hear from you what you'd like to achieve in this course.

Tone and Value are fundamental to a sense of depth, contrast and shape

Tone and value are terms often used, and often misused - including by me. In this workshop we'll be looking at their 'real' meanings - but also delving in to why they're so often confused.

Using practical tips and an understanding of watercolours and ink, we'll soon be clearing up in our minds how to use them to enhance our sketching.

The aims of this workshop are:

• Define tone and value in art

• Consider how tone and value interact with the properties of watercolours

• Understand how value can be achieved with ink and hatching

• Put value into practice with a value-based sketched

Colour theory can inform our choice of colours

Colour theory is the supposed rules that we as artists can use to understand how to use and mix colours, not just to produce other colours - but also to produce certain moods and effects in our art.

From colour theory we can devise colour schemes, and consider how to use these in our art to enhance it, simplify it and make the scene our own.

The aims of this workshop are:

• Understand what 'Colour Theory' means

• Consider how colour theory can enhance our sketching, creating mood and feeling

• Understand that colour theory doesn't mean just following rigid rules

• Put all this into practice with a range of colour theory informed sketches

Our aims for this workshop

Watercolour washes are another way of describing the watercolour painting process, and in this workshop we'll delve more deeply into the techniques I focus on when I'm applying my washes.

Our aims are:

1. To understand why we talk about 'washes' not 'painting'

2. To look at how to vary our watercolour washes

3. To show that variation leads to quick and interesting effects

4. To gain confidence by using variation in a range of thumbnail and full sketches

Watercolours First - Ink After

In direct watercolours, we flip our normal processes around - instead of working from a simple ink structure, we splash down loose colours and apply the structure later.

This process can feel scary, so in this workshop we'll have a few warm ups to get used to the idea - before heading into the challenge, which is specifically divided up into separate short videos to make sure the process is simple to understand.

Our aims in this workshop are:

1. To gain confidence in applying watercolours first

2. Understand how to react to what happens on our page

3. Further our use of tone and value

4. See that structure can come at the beginning or the end of a sketch

Celebrating Watercolours

Watercolours are a unique medium in so many ways - and in this workshop we're going to be looking at many of the effects they can produce and incorporating these into our sketching.

Our aims are:

1. To understand what effects watercolours can produce

2. To learn why these effects happen

3. Start using these effects in our sketches

4. Produce a final, fun, loose and enjoyable loose sketch

Well done, you've made it through.

Thank you so much for making it through with me - in this section we'll look at how far you've come, and the next steps you might want to take on your sketching journey.