Learn how to use watercolour to depict coves, rocks and cliffs with artist David Webb in this live webinar. Learn to look at a scene with an artist’s eye and choose which elements are important and which can be left out.

Be inspired by the iconic landscape around St Ives wherever you might be in the world. Full of atmosphere and texture, the dramatic coastline lends itself perfectly to the medium of watercolour. David will work alongside you using a video recording of our beautiful local landscape. Learn how to compose your picture, using sketches and tonal studies, before beginning your painting.

In the webinar we’ll be aiming to create the three dimensional effect of sun and shadows on rocks, in our painting. We’ll also use the medium to create an impression of water. If the scene is calm or wild, the effect is always exciting to paint.

David will show you how to create vibrant paintings with a limited palette, how to create a painting in three washes of light, medium and dark tones. The webinar will include demonstrations of several techniques including painting wet-on-dry, wet-into-wet and mixing your colours on the paper surface. Learn how to set up a good design for your painting by finding a focal point and explore how to use edges and shapes to create areas of strong contrast. Learn how areas of similar tone can be allowed to blend together to create ‘lost’ edges.

Once you have booked a session, you will receive a link on the morning of the broadcast. All you need to do is follow the link. You will also be invited to join our Facebook Alumni group so you can share your discoveries with our community of fellow students from around the world.

You can watch the session live and paint along with David or watch later. We send you a recording so you can watch again on demand as many times as you like for up to one month after. This way you can pause a scene, rewind and finish your painting.

What to Bring

If you would like to join in live you will need 2b-4b pencils for sketching, watercolour paints, brushes, mixing palette with 5 or 6 large wells and heavy watercolour paper. For the painting, tape or stretch a sheet of watercolour paper to a board. It’s best to tape all around the edges, rather than just on the corners, as this helps to keep it flat.
If you want to ensure that it stays flat and doesn’t warp, then stretching is best and should be done the night before the webinar.

Suggested colours: Cobalt Blue, Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson, Lemon Yellow, Indian Yellow, Raw Sienna and Sepia or Black for monochrome sketches

You will need access to the internet and ideally a PC, laptop or a tablet with audio. Phones are not really suitable to watch a webinar on, unless you can cast to your Smart TV, as the presenter will be hard to see when they share their screen with you .

Timings and Breaks

We will start teaching at 10.30am and work for 2.5 hours with a short break.

We will pause for questions at different points during the session; you can pose questions to the artist using the chat function.

We will be sending you a recording of the session so you can revisit as often as you like for up to a month after broadcast.