Demystify painting and build your studio toolkit. Join artist Hilary Jean Gibson in our studio where she will share with you how to free up your watercolour working with a single colour. Ideal for capturing landscape.

This is a practical one hour demo to help demystify watercolour and motivate you by building your confidence. In this session Hilary works in just a single colour so you can focus on a range of tools to start to build your mark making vocabulary. Create lively and interesting effects. See how sprinkling salt on wet paint recreates the sparkle of light on water, or lift off techniques mimic the texture of rock. Learn how contemporary artists work in this immediate and dynamic way especially when trying to capture a landscape at speed.

There will be an opportunity for students to pose questions to Hilary during the demonstrations. You can watch the session live or later. We record it so we can let you revisit the session to refresh your memory for up to two weeks after.

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.

What will I learn?

Learn tips to make your watercolour more free and energetic

How to use tone to create a sense of distance

How to use simple techniques to create interesting effects

Approaches ideal for taking outside and working quickly in the landscape

Would this session suit me?

Absolutely if you are looking for some top tips to improve your watercolour painting. Ideal if you want to find out how to use watercolour in an expressive and free way so you can enjoy the medium more. The techniques work really well for developing exciting sketchbook work.

How Does an online session work?

Once you have booked, we will send you a link the day before so you can join the session live. Al l you need to do is follow the link ten minutes before the start time. You can watch this on a Smart TV, PC, smartphone or tablet and even cast to your TV from your phone.

You can put questions to the tutor using the chat function during the session. The sessions are recorded and you will be able to watch again at your leisure as many times as you want for up to two weeks after. You will also be invited to join our Facebook Alumni group so you can share your discoveries with fellow students from around the world.

What to Bring

If you would like to join in with the live session you will need:

3 sheets of A4 watercolour paper ideally cold pressed and a board to tape it to. You can tape this into a grid using masking tape.

For paint you just need black watercolour and a range of tools – a selection of brushes including a flat and a round brush, a toothbrush, palette, clingfilm, salt, a small white birthday candle, sponge (small natural one or a dishwasher sponge cut into small bits), kitchen towel, and plenty of water at least 4 pots.

You will need access to the internet and ideally a PC, SmartTV, laptop or a tablet with audio. Phones are not really suitable to watch a webinar on as the presenter will be hard to see when they share their screen with you. But we will be sending you a recording of the session so you can revisit it as many times as you like for another two weeks.

Timings and Breaks

We will start at 10.30am and work for 1 hour. We will pause for questions at different points during the session you can pose any questions to the artist using the chat function.