Get comfortable. Todays painting is one of the hardest projects yet. It’s a busy scene with lots of small marks to help form the shapes of the people in the distance, but you must preserve those whites between, this will help to keep those lovely highlights in between as the sunlight bounces down. This one is a world famous market in London called “Portobello Road” enjoy…

The streets of San Francisco are famous for there undulating nature and we have a challenge here for our students, the perspective changes due to the nature of the hill but you’ll see as we paint along that it’s still using our normal techniques to create this effect. This is a really fabulous painting to display if you can master it, an interesting location, a great bustling scene and some vibrant colours, what more could you ask for…

This week were using just one wash, no going back over areas, just one single wash to create this nice quick piece called “Been Shopping”. Keep your brights bright and your background nice and wet to keep the colour flowing.  Your foreground should be subtle and in the light here so don’t overdo it. Enjoy everyone…

This is a little different today, we’re using 8 colours not three or six ! So if you’ve been here a while you’ll know I use Winsor Violet and Winsor Green when I’m in the mood, lol, just to add some extra tones into paintings and that’s exactly what we're doing today. "A hot day at Long Beach" deserved to add those extra colours to give our greens and purple shades a little boost. You’ll have lots of fun here…

This was taken in Oxford, England several years ago and it maybe “two go cycling” but we have five people in this one so it’s definitely in our advanced category. Everyone should give it a go but take your time and watch and rewatch areas of detail. Give some special attention to the wheels, they not round so draw it carefully. Remember above all, have fun and enjoy…

Well, this one is slightly different to usual, we don’t have any people in this scene, but a lovely warm bright boat, sadly sat upon the sands. This is great for everyone to paint along with, nearly an hour long, it’s great for intermediate levels and its important to keep this one nice and loose.

This one is a great challenge to get that background pushed backwards and abstract without obsessing over every branch, which in turn distracts from your main subject, its a piece anyone can try but is around the intermediate/advanced level really as its over 2 hours. This is a photo of a family friend of Jemma and Bess and its a really lovely action shot. You’ll get great results if you tae your time here and plenty of breaks in between layers. Happy painting…

Happy new year !!! As a perfect cure for those with slight hangovers we thought you could do with a nice intermediate level painting, this one is called ‘couple on a wall’ and its ALL about preserving the whites on the two subjects. Happy painting…

This is a perfect Christmas painting, the Strictly Come Dancing final is this weekend (dancing with the stars in the USA) but it originated right here in my home town of Blackpool and I thought a “Last tango” would feel very Christmas spirited right now. Happy Christmas everyone, and see you in the new year for another great year of painting some fantastic subjects…

This is a photo that was given to me by one of our members, Nancy Gallagher, and I loved the relaxed nature of the photo so thought it would make a great tutorial for us all. This really is in the advanced category and is over 2 hours long so give yourself plenty of time, and take several breaks as you go along. You'll really enjoy the end result though. Happy painting.

This is a fantastic painting for our advanced (or daring) students, this is "contemplation". We use a lot of wet into wet here and its a long one at 2 hours and 15 mins so get comfy maybe with a glass of wine or a beer and enjoy this fantastic tutorial. The result is well and truly worth it.

This week were painting a subject we’ve painted before, but from a different photo and using just two main washes to try and create a vibrant painting you’ll be proud of. This is a great piece for all levels and at just over an hour long its one you can practice a few times.

This is a great piece for all abilities. “Sunny girl” was taken near Kew Gardens in London a few years ago and is a great way to hone your watercolour skills, especially maintaining a lovely warm but bright highlight on our main subject as well as soft backgrounds that hint at the setting without doing every tiny detail. Enjoy…

Welcome to my 75th tutorial. This is a big one and has been requested by members many times, so here we go... This is "The yellow parasols", a bright and vibrant painting you'll be proud to hang in your home. We use all our normal techniques and the final result is incredible. It’s an advanced tutorial, over 2 hours long, so get comfy and break it down into manageable stages. You'll really enjoy this one.

We have a real challenge this week, this is one of our more advanced pieces called 'The sleeping Cat'. It's a beautiful image and I've added a cat in the drawing as it just fits so well in the scene. Lots of wet onto dry and those highlights are all important here, a fantastic result and well worth the time, have fun...

This piece is a great exercise in learning to add colour to a black and white photo. You don't have to stick to my colours here, have some fun with this fun painting. Try to stay loose and get nice and expressive here, I can't wait to see your submissions for this one.

Todays tutorial is this fantastic Hot Rod. This is an advanced piece and it's not for the feint hearted. We are going to use softening to create the shining chrome effect and I've changed the background to something that’s a little nicer on the eye. Feel free to change it to your own, maybe the desert or perhaps someone will put it on the famous route 66?

Merry Christmas everyone ! This week we're painting 'It's Snow Fun' a fantastic winter image. I've turned to the dark side and used some masking fluid (I know, I know) but its really the best way to create that fluffy snow texture as it gets thrown into the air. We then soften things down a little with a damp brush to create those lost edges. Enjoy this during some downtime over Christmas.

This week you’re painting one of grahams most requested paintings. We’re painting a horse and Carriage, mid ride in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. This is Grahams longest tutorial so make sure you’re comfy if you’re going to do this in one sitting. It’s a great way to use light and shadow to create shapes that jump off the paper. Colourful, beautiful and interesting, this is a great way to hone the skills we’ve learnt to create your very own masterpiece.

Today we’re in London with something that feels a little alien to us all right now. It’s a photo of a man sat outside a cafe relaxing. We’ve got some great use of lights and darks to create shadows around his bag and under the table as well as preserving all the highlights using the white of the paper where it's needed. Hopefully this will become the norm again so, enjoy…

Yeehaw, this week were painting one of my favourites. It’s a rodeo scene of a cowboy riding a bull. This is a really exciting subject as we have to create the effect of dust and movement in the foreground whilst keeping our focus on the bull and cowboy. Were using our pallet of three to start and moving on to all six colours for the detail, you’re gonna love this one…

Today we're in the world famous Liverpool. This is a photo of my own with great shadows to really show perspective in the painting. It’s two people ‘walking and talking’ in everyday life, a typical everyday scene that could be from anywhere in the world. We are going to use three colours for our initial wash, and then six colours for our detail. You’ll really enjoy this one!"

Today we’re back in the pub. This is a photo I took many years ago in Kew, London and is one I love painting because of the intense light coming through the windows and reflecting on the tables. We’ve got several people in the shot and they add some interest and detail, but were trying to catch the atmosphere and overall feeling of the traditional British Pub. Enjoy !"

We are going to Spain... This week we have a more in depth tutorial that focuses on two women sat on a wall looking out to sea. It's a great exercise in using wet in wet technique as we need a nice blurred background from which we can build detail into the main focus which is the two women discussing "Whats out there?"

This week we're having a little fun. This is a composition of my own with a woman, hands on hips, looking on with disdain at a little dog spraying her luggage. It's a light hearted but great beginner/intermediate tutorial for you all to have some fun with. The reference image doesn't have a dog in it but I thought adding it made it a better composition, plus you get the chance to choose your own dog, search for one on google, or use the one in the reference drawing. I'd love to see a few different types of dogs in the gallery so go crazy and indulge yourself.

Welcome to Tenerife, This week we're painting from a photo I took of three men going out on a boat for a days fishing. It's a scene you see a lot in the small fishing ports and is great fun for all levels of artist. We use the three base colours for our under wash and move to all six for our more detailed work. This is a great painting and I hope you really enjoy it.

Bonjour, we're in France. A typical small cafe, to be specific, with a couple sitting enjoying a drink. This is a great painting for all levels and we've had some long tutorials recently so this is nice change of pace running a little shorter at just over an hour. It's a great use of colours in the shadows and washes then using precision to create the pavement and the shutter effects. I hope you really enjoy it.

We're in Charleston, South Carolina, and we're outside the famous Poogans Smokehouse. This is a challenging and in depth painting that creates a wonderful finished painting worthy of anyones wall. I've broken it down in to several sections and we will work through it logically, Don't worry about counting those bricks in the background, I'll show you a great way to create the brick effect. It's a really fun painting that you'll really enjoy.

This week we're in France. This is a photo of my wife Pauline gardening on a trip to France a couple of years ago. This presents some challenges, it has some fantastic colours throughout, but we have to keep the painting balanced to create realism. It's a really fun painting to follow along with. We will use three colours initially and then progress to using all six to add details throughout, there's no blurred backgrounds, which means lots of detail, but I know you'll really enjoy this one.

This painting is a little different. We have two people, two trees, two pigeons, it's two in Tenerife. An advanced tutorial for those who really want to get stuck into using multiple washes using our base three colours and then using all six colours to create a deeper more detailed tone for our subjects. We break this down into multiple sections to create a methodical approach to the painting. Enjoy.

We're in Memphis. Beale Street, the world famous home of Jazz and we're painting Sonny Mac mid performance. This painting only uses three colours to create lovely darks and a shallow depth of field for our background. Then we split the painting of Sonny himself up into nice easy sections before coming in with the final detail at the end. This is a really challenging tutorial but the result is an incredible painting you'll be really proud of.

This tutorial is painted from a photograph I took during a visit to the US last year and my first baseball game at the Busch Stadium in St. Louis. It was the St. Louis Cardinals vs the Pittsburgh Pirates. We capture the moment John Jaso hits a home run - full of action and movement and a great subject to paint.

This is a totally different subject for me, it's a night scene in a dimly lit, smoky jazz club, with some great atmosphere. We tackle this one with my usual triad of three colours, and as always the drawing is supplied for you so we can get painting straight away. You're going to need a lot of paint for this one so let's get painting!

This weeks project features a group of kids playing football on a hot day in a city location, most likely in southern Spain, Portugal or Brazil. What attracted me to this scene was the vibrant colours, strong crisp shadows, high contrast and sense of movement coming from the kids.

Hello everyone, here we have a painting tutorial that is jam packed with loads for you to get stuck into! The horses riding at full gallop provide loads of movement for you to capture and the exciting, vibrant colours really bring this race to life. So let's get started!

This is a beautiful little image of 4 or 5 guys pulling in their fishing nets. Not too much detail in this one but a lot of atmosphere, with vibrant colours and the almost silhouetted figures on this panoramic view.

This is an interesting night scene, probably in Prague. It’s darker than my usual paintings, and we’re going to use the colours to mix some interesting shades and create a warm feel at the focal point of the painting. I want to create feel of a balmy evening and bring the street vendors’ stall to life. We will only be using five colours, but mixing them together to create a nice flow of paint using wet techniques. This helps create lovely soft edges where needed. We will then add wet onto dry to create more details and sharper edges for the focal point of the painting using darker, more intense mixes of those five colours. I always love painting real life situations, and here we have some great reflections from the street lighting to work with. This is great for beginners and experienced artists and I love the final painting because we’ve all had similar photos from holidays and the techniques can all be applied to a similar photo of your own.

This is a really fun piece to paint, creating the feeling of movement within a painting. We will start with a background wash using wet in wet to build a nice blurry feel, creating that lovely out of focus feel so that the hero of the painting stands out. We use lots of wet in wet techniques to create nice soft edges using the 1 inch brush. We’re using yellow and permanent rose for the background, so we’ll have to work quick here as it’s a staining colour. Once we get paint on the brush we work from top to bottom to get our nice mottled background in place. Once dry we will move on to the subject and start with a light wash to give a basis to add layers, adding darker and lighter paints to produce a sense of movement within the footballer. We’ll apply some finishing touches, using virtually neat paint to create the badges and emblems, and to give a darker tone to draw the eye into the painting. We’ll also use add some of this darker mix to emphasise the shadows.

This is a great painting to try if you want to paint something with a little “action”. We will create a feeling of pace and power for the horse using various shades of golds, reds and blues. This give us a real sense that were in the heart of the action. Using wide brush strokes, combined with contrasting and complimentary colours, we use light and darks areas to create form. Later on in the tutorial we will use Quinacridone gold and reds mixed with some cobalt blue to really highlight the intense areas and create that feeling of fast movement within the painting. Using washes and brownish reds we will enhance the dusty feel within the background to give the horse and barrel a solid grounding. This is a really fun painting to try if you’ve never painted a fast moving subject before. Let's get the brushes out.

A painting of a young baseball player running for home plate, this is a fun little study in getting the colours onto the paper quickly for the background and then using some slower techniques to add detail to the body and face. It’s also really fun to add the shadows and highlights, especially in the dusty sand to show where the dirt has been kicked up. We mix the colours together fairly loosely in this painting and blend them together on the palette as we go along. We use a nice green to “pull” the baseball player forwards off the page to give it a really strong feel that there’s depth in the image.