The weekend will be about exploring the local views, both inside from references and outside en plein air. There are village scenes and rural landscapes abounds, and we will also throw in some warm up challenges to get people talking, sketching and loosening up.

In this four day course, we will have lots of time together to experiment, and also to focus on your art and developing your style.

What to expect?

Each day we'll have two different three hour workshops together, with a gap for lunch and plenty of tea, coffee and snacks to keep us all going. There will be 'exercises' that I set, but we'll also ensure there is time to tackle issues and challenges that you want to tackle.

In this course I'll bring some mixed media, and encourage you to do the same.

Day 1 - Breaking down our techniques, in the morning we'll look at ink sketching, from simple lines, to soluble inks, followed by an afternoon exploring our watercolours, and how we can enhance them with alternative media.

Day 2 - Finding our scenes, in the morning we'll (weather permitting), head outside to explore what makes a good scene. Failing that, we'll head outside to take some photos to work from back in the warmth of our venue. We'll explore scene selection, building a focus, and working out challenges in our scenes.

Day 3 - In the morning we'll focus on working at pace, and 'inside-outside' sketching, that enables us to create masterpieces from sketches. In the afternoon we'll have individualised learning, on day one I'll ask you to start thinking about what specific challenges you have, and we'll tackle these together as a group.

Day 4 - Project day, bringing it all together. This is your chance to work on a scene of your choosing, from memory, from photos, or from the surrounding Cotswolds en plein air. We'll put into practice all the ideas from the past three days and create a project in the morning, and another in the afternoon building on ideas and trials from our experiences together.

Meals and accommodation

These are not included, but I'm happy to give advice/tips on places to stay and answer any questions. Snacks, teas, coffees and the like are included during the days. Please check the terms and conditions for full information.

Behind the Scenes at our last Course - Check out this video

Acceptance

Previous artists have ranged from absolute beginners through to very accomplished oil painters, but all have come with the same exploratory mindset. A lack of confidence has been a common theme at the beginning of workshops, but this has normally all but vanished by the end of the first day.

A classic scene from Lower Slaughter, where we will be based.

The aim for the course is to help you develop your style - I will lead you through a series of guided workshops, both inside and outside (weather and temperature permitting). Discussing the principles that are common and fundamental to sketching architecture and landscapes in both ink and watercolour, but also how, why and when to break the rules.