Ref: SSS31287
This course will help you to improve your watercolour skills and painting accuracy, encouraging you to look closely at your subject in order to portray it in as much detail as possible. During the course, you wiill visit the gardens to choose items that appeal to you such as fruit, vegetables, flowers, leaves, bark, etc.
You will learn how to use a variety of watercolour techniques to create textures and detail and how to mix and match colours to specimens from a limited palette. You will learn how and when to use wet-in-wet, wet-on-dry and dry brush techniques. You will use different mark-making techniques to create texture. Comparative and to scale measuring will enable you to create accurate initial drawings. Using a variety of techniques and an understanding of negative space, you will be able to create a balanced composition.
Sketchbook studies will be used to develop drawing skills and to gather information about your subjects. There will be plenty of tutor demonstrations and one-to-one tuition.
By the end of the course, you will have produced a completed composition and a series of small detailed studies. You will have developed your knowledge of the various watercolour techniques, colour mixing and an understanding of how to build a painting from start to finish.
Summer School highlights:
The Summer School week is an immersive learning experience with more time to develop your creativity and embrace opportunities for creative development beyond your chosen course. A detailed timetable for your Summer School week will be given to you on arrival. This will include:
• Short inspirational talks by tutors and displays of their work
• A short creative experience session in another discipline/media or course
• An optional evening at the Chichester Festival Theatre (if pre-booked)
• An optional lunchtime tour of West Dean Gardens, the historic rooms at West Dean College, or West Dean Tapestry Studio
• A celebration dinner on the last evening themed on Impressionism, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionists exhibition held in Paris in 1874. Feel free to respond to the theme if you wish.
• Informal end-of-course group reviews and displays of students' work in studios
As evening events are planned as part of the Summer School week, dinner is included in the course fee to enable all students, including non-residents, to participate fully.
Timetable for Summer Schools
Several evening events are planned throughout the week, a detailed timetable for the summer schools will be given to you on arrival.
Arrival Day
Residential students to arrive from 4pm, non-residential students to arrive by 6.45pm.
6.45pm: Welcome, followed by dinner (included).
8 - 9pm: First teaching session, attendance is essential.
Daily timetable
Classes 9.15 - 5pm, lunch is included.
From 6.30pm: Dinner (included).
Evening working - students may have access to workshops until 9pm, but only with their tutor's permission and provided any health and safety guidelines are observed.
Last day
Classes 9.15am - 3pm, lunch is included.
Residential students should vacate their rooms by 10am please.
Amber trained at the University of Creative Arts in Canterbury. She then went on to specialise in watercolour and coloured pencil in botanical art. Amber currently works on private commissions and teaches botanical and watercolour classes. Her work is highly detailed with a contemporary style. She is a Fellow Member of the Society of Botanical Artists, exhibits regularly in London and Germany, and has sold work to private collections in the UK, Germany, France and China.
Residential option available. Find out accommodation costs and how to book here.
Places available - Book now
Places available - Book now
Places available - Book now
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