In this two day course, students will learn the basics of how flowers are put together and how diverse flowers and leaf forms are. They’ll use pencil to look at recording lights and darks and will learn the basics of using and mixing watercolour. We’ll cover mixing greens, different ways to tackle painting white flowers, mixing yellows and adding shadows to them, and we’ll work with pinks and try to get them really delicate or really vibrant. Students will get to paint a variety of flowers from the Botanic Garden, and see tutor demos of leaf and flower painting. By the end of the course students should feel happy using watercolours; be comfortable mixing colours; be able to tackle yellow, white and pink flowers; and have produced a variety of study drawings and watercolour sketches.

Suitable for beginners through to intermediates

Lizzie Harper is a freelance natural history and botanical illustrator working in watercolour, pencil, and pen. She’s the illustrator of “The Hedgerow Handbook” and “Foraging with Kids, and her work is in “The Bumper Book of Nature “ and HarperCollins Flower Guide.  She has also worked on flower identification charts for Field Studies Council, and illustrations for the Welsh Botanic Gardens. She works in her garden studio in Hay on Wye where she lives happily with a long-suffering husband and two lively children.