Summer Workshops At Waterperry Gardens, Oxfordshire

Contemporary Landscape in watercolour and mixed media

This summer’s landscape-themed workshops are based at the beautiful Waterperry Gardens, just off the M40/A40 between Oxford and Thame. Waterperry offers various subjects and starting points including mature trees along the River Thame, a water-lily canal, herbaceous borders, a gravel garden, clipped yew, 18th century facades and a small agricultural museum. Every workshop will include some open-air work, and we have the use of a well-lit classroom for studio-based work.

Choose from a range of 1- and 2-day workshops in watercolour and mixed media. Each day has a different focus, but all are designed to encourage looser, more contemporary approaches to a traditional medium. Workshops can be taken in any combination on a ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ basis.


Workshops run from 10.00 am – 4.00 pm.

Beginners and all levels of painting experience welcome.

£56 per day - includes artists’ quality materials and tea and coffee.

5% discount if booking 3 or more days.

£3.85 per day payable at Waterperry for unlimited garden entry.

Ample free parking.

Bring a packed lunch, or visit the on-site café.

Do get in touch for more information or to reserve your place.

Summer Workshops 2008

From observation to abstraction
Saturday 2 August
A series of drawing and painting exercises will take you from observation and accurate recording to the abstract, through a process of paring down, re-interpreting and combining images. The exercises will improve both your observational work and your abilities to abstract from the subject.


Introduction to using a sketchbook
Sunday 3 August
One of the most effective ways to make progress in your work, at any level, is to develop a sketchbook habit. This workshop suggests multiple strategies to record visual information in your own sketchbook, to build the practice into daily life, and to overcome self-consciousness and boredom! Bring a hardback sketchbook and a pair of scissors; other materials provided.


Palimpsest - one layer after another
Monday 4 – Tuesday 5 August
Contemporary artists often choose not to erase ‘mistakes’, treating them as valuable evidence of their train of visual thought. The artist’s changes of mind, still faintly visible, enrich the finished work, showing the passage of time and the process of making. We will use watercolour, collage, and texture to make complex and personal works, which make positive use of ‘mistakes’ but without stirring up mud. We will draw inspiration from artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Barbara Rae and Cy Twombly (the latter at Tate Modern this summer).


Colour: the new white
Thursday 14 – Friday 15 August
Cézanne’s late works made a feature of leaving areas of paper or canvas unpainted. Together with work by Ivon Hitchens, this is our starting point to explore the power of white, not only to ‘let the light in’ but as a way of simplifying, abstracting and strengthening your work. We will explore the placement of unpainted white areas in composition, and the expressive potential of warm and cool whites.


The personal colour palette days, below, can either be taken individually, or consecutively (without repetition) as a 2-day course.

Personal colour palette 1
Saturday 16 August
Move beyond simply matching the paint to the literal colour of the subject and investigate the resonance of particular colours for you. This workshop will help you find abstract colour harmonies that really work for you in relation to the overall composition and subject matter. Please bring your own scissors to this workshop.


Personal colour palette 2
Sunday 17 August
Investigate the personal nature of colour appreciation from a different angle, by adding an element of surprise to energise the palette. Move beyond the clichés to develop a personal colour palette that expresses the atmosphere you wish to create. Please bring your own scissors to this workshop. It is not necessary to do 1 in order to do 2.


Colour and tonal value
Thursday 28 August
Choosing a colour or hue is relatively easy -green, blue, red, pinkish-beige etc. However, translating colour to the appropriate tonal value - how light or dark the blue or beige is - requires more practice. Learn to organise your tonal values within the composition to create believable paintings, whether figurative or abstract.


Sketchbook development
Friday 29 August
For those of you who attended the Using a sketchbook workshop either last year or at the beginning of August, or if you already use a sketchbook regularly, this workshop will take your sketchbook work further. The day begins with what your current sketchbook says about your particular interests, and then offers ideas about how to evolve new work from it. Bring your ongoing sketchbook(s) to work from, and a pair of scissors.


Mixed media personal mark-making
Saturday 30 – Sunday 31 August
Experiment with instinctive mark-making to discover highly personal textures, marks and shapes in watercolour and mixed media. You may work figuratively with your newly discovered marks, but there will be the opportunity to move beyond representation to the point where the original subject matter disappears, while retaining a sense of composition. Work by artists such as Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko and Alf Lohr will inspire us, as will the gardens' textures.

Click here to download further details and an application form, or email me with your postal address to receive a paper copy of the workshop brochure.