Are you afraid to try watercolours but have been deterred by the erroneous myth that they are supposed to be difficult? This course is for absolute beginners and for all those who have attended Richard’s earlier course ‘ Painting for the Petrified ‘and wish to develop their skills. Richard will dispel that myth and teach you, step by step, how to paint a simple still life and achieve marvellous effects with numerous layers of translucent colours without getting mud!

With most painting problems resulting from the inability to successfully mix colours, the course will start by exploring the nature of colour with coloured pencils. This will give you the confidence to transfer your newly discovered knowledge to watercolours.

If you follow Richard's 'recipes', you will be thrilled at what you can achieve.

Please Bring:

• A drawing board or an off-cut of either MDF or plywood 16 in. x 20 in. approximately .* Four drawing board clips or bulldog clips *
• A roll of gummed paper strip (N.B. not to be confused with masking tape!) *
• A pad or a few sheets of watercolour paper (300grams) size A4 approximately *
• An eraser
• Six coloured pencils - ultramarine and cerulean blues, lemon and cadmium yellows, scarlet and crimson reds. Please bring those of good quality, preferably water soluble. (Caran D'Ache are excellent and their respective number codes are as follows = 140, 171, 240, 010, 060 and 080 *
• One orange, one apple, one onion and a few grapes
• Two right-angled "corners" cut from stiff card in the form of the capital "L" about 8 inches in both directions and 1 inch wide *
• A pencil sharpener
• A watercolour paint box that contains the same six colours (i.e. a purple-blue, a green-blue, a green-yellow, an orange yellow, an orange-red and a purple -red. Equivalent names could be ultramarine, cerulean blue, lemon-yellow, cadmium yellow or gamboge, scarlet and crimson). Bring also a tube of white gouache paint
• A palette with at least 8 indentations
• A kitchen roll
• A couple of paintbrushes - sable or simulated - sizes 4, 6 or even 8
• Two water jars

* Means that Richard, your tutor, will have some spares of these items for you to borrow ( at no extra charge ) so long as he remembers to bring them!

P.S. Those of you who are speedy might like to start another painting on the second day; this time the subject could anything of your choosing.