It’s highlights week, so we are painting “Two old friends”. This image was chosen specifically to give all of my fabulous members some real practice on your highlights, It’s a stunning, bright subject with tonnes of white sunlit areas, so be bold and go for the best highlights you’ve ever created. Remember it’s easier to add layers than take away layers so slow and steady wins the race here, watch a section, rewind and watch it again as you do it. You’ll love it the results if you PTW (preserve those whites) enjoy everyone…

This week we start a three part series on one of my favourite subjects, cycling. This week is our beginner piece where I take a little more time on a beautiful image from Charleston in 2017. But we won’t do the second instalment straight away, so next time will be something involving people and we will revisit cycling in a month or so. Here though we really focus on highlights and using colourful shadows to create depth in the image. Don’t get bogged down in every detail, keep it loose, especially in the background, less is more here. Enjoy…

Small boats. The title says it all. This week we’re not painting any people but this beautiful collection of small boats floating in the harbour. I love painting boats as they present a different challenge for us. We have stunning reflections, which are not just mirror images of the boats, so look for the subtle changes in tone and shape as the water around them moves, ripples and bounces our sunlight towards us. This is a great intermediate piece but everyone can give this a go. Enjoy…

This week we are painting ‘texting’. After our last few tutorials I thought it would be nice to do a simple beginners piece with just a single figure. This is the type of painting that I do at my in person workshops and is broken into a first wash and then three sections, the top background, the woman and then finally the foreground.  The result is this beautiful painting with lots of retained highlights and a bright colourful main subject. Give it a go a few times as it’s only 50 minutes. Enjoy...

This week we are "Checking the bill" with this wonderfully busy cafe scene.  We break it down into 3 sections, the top background, the people and finally the chairs and foreground, giving it a nice easy to follow structure.  This is an intermediate to advanced painting but will be great fun as its a challenge to recreate accurately, but don’t try to repeat every line, use shapes and shadows to form your darks and keep those whites preserved. Enjoy...

This week were doing a great piece for our beginners and anyone wanting to practice their vibrant shadow work. This is a photo taken from an unusual perspective that casts shadows diagonally towards us so they’re important in our composition. We also use a ruler to create some very straight pavement (sidewalk) lines that go through our shadows but behind our subjects which finishes our painting using a new technique. You’ll enjoy this one and it is just over an hour so it is one you can do a few times.

Fancy a Great British tradition? Well today is your day, we’re going Bowling but this is Crown Green bowling and a photo taken mid afternoon to create a lovely, active photo for something that’s quite a calming activity. We have so many whites to preserve here but you have to keep some colours in here too to show our reflected greens and our blue top lady. This is a great painting if you’re at an intermediate level but is good for all to try, keep your lines sharp and your backgrounds soft. Enjoy…

After our advanced tutorial last time I thought we’d do something a little easy going this week, so I’ve chosen a subject I like to paint and is easy to repeat. ‘Casting’ is a great beginner/intermediate piece for our core skills, making sure our lights are preserved well and using a vibrant yellow to bring our main subject forward. The sky and foreground are great practice for blending colours to achieve some variation in the colours. Give this one a go a few times if you have some time. Enjoy…

125! Yes it's our 125th tutorial this week, so I saved a real favourite of mine for this one. This is "Bubbles" and it’s a photo of my nephews daughter taken a few years ago now. Perfect as a really interesting and advanced subject for you all to try, this is all about that cheeky face and the white, crisp bubble outlines that make this truly shine as a painting. Happy 125th tutorial everyone...

This week's tutorial is a reminder that summer is here (even though the UK isn't really seeing it) and this is a great reminder of those lazy days just walking down the beach with the sea lapping at your feet. This is an intermediate level piece and relies on a loose touch to create some lovely movement and texture in our sea and sand with some nice sharp lines to define our figure. Enjoy...

This week it’s just one wash, yep you heard right, only one wash of all six colours directly onto a wet canvas to create this great Venice Gondola scene. We then use some lifting off to help enhance our highlights. This is one of our really simple paintings to really encourage our new members to give this painting a go several times to see your progress each time. You’ll really enjoy trying this and seeing your water and pigment controls improve as you go…

This week we have something totally new, its two paintings in one. We do our first painting with a sea and sky background and then replace that background with a darker version based on our original photo. This is a great opportunity to see how just changing the background can transform your painting without touching our main subject at all. It’s a great exercise in knowing how to correct something using darker tones. This is fairly advanced but good for all levels to try if you can set aside a couple of hours to complete it. Enjoy…

Something a little different this week! We’re painting a seascape, from San Francisco. It’s not the Golden Gate but we are further along the coast and painting the equally beautiful and often overlooked ‘Oakland Bay Bridge’. We have plenty of opportunity for expressive brushstrokes here in both our water, backgrounds and sky with some lovely details in the sails of our boat and the bridge itself, especially those cables, so take care on those. You’ll love this change of pace and it’s a great intermediate level piece for everyone to enjoy…

This is perfect for our new members and established members alike. We are using just three colours to show what amazing work can be done with a simple palette, we have a single figure with a lovely blurred background and we use Quinn Gold and Cobalt Blue to create our base greens, then focus on our figure with all three colours mixing them to create depth of tone. It’s also a great way to really hone your eye into looking for the colours and where to place them to create that bright white t-shirt. Be careful and use the white of the paper to its best effect. Enjoy…

This week we’ve chosen a beginner tutorial for our newer members, this is “The little boat and reflection” and it’s essentially a light wash and a main wash followed by a few tweaks to tighten up a couple of areas. This means we’re looking to create our highlights in our second wash using the paper itself and adding our “halo” effect to really highlight the outline of our boat. We can practice this piece again and again as its only 30 minutes start to finish, so do it several times and watch your own progress too. Enjoy…

I love this weeks painting, it’s a nice intermediate to advanced piece that’s quite long but produces a fabulous result. “Join the queue” is something very British, we will stand in queues for pretty much anything, but this is a typical scene you see on our streets and this one is from our great city of Oxford.  We split this up into bitesize chunks to allow some time for coffees, but you could do it all in one sitting if you’re really brave and let your brush stay loose and expressive. I really hope you enjoy this one it was a fun one to paint…

I’m currently in the USA on my workshop tour 2023 so I thought this week would be a great time to use a photo taken on one of my last visits. This is “Walking in Memphis” and is a perfect beginner piece for all of my students to try. This is a single figure, just like I start my three day workshops, it gives you a simple area to focus on for the details and keep your background nice and simple using wet into wet to create shapes rather than worrying about details. You can really focus on our figure and preserve those whites to make this painting really shine. Enjoy…

It’s golfing season so what better time to do a lovely painting of this golfer, I can’t decide if he’s happy after a successful put or wandering the long walk thinking where did that go?  It’s a great beginner painting that can be repeated again and again to see improvements each time (we have a much bigger and complex golf scene that is a real challenge coming this summer).We’ve soft backgrounds with nice sharp and soft lines in our main figure.  Don’t get lost on the green 🙂 keep your focus on our main subject…

This is a stunning scene of a once thriving small port that is now more or a tourist attraction for people in England. Many scenes of boats have been painted here as the regular low tide and stunning background buildings give us a great composition. So today watch those darks don’t go too dark in the background, keep it bright enough as its in sunlight, and dot and dash your foreground with some nice texture in it to show the pebbles and stones with the sands here. Keep your boat the focal point, that’s the star of the piece…

This week we’re going to paint “Lady in the red top”. This is an intermediate level piece but anyone can still give it a go. We start with our three colour wash to map out where we want to keep our brightest highlights. Then we use our six colours to paint our main subject using wet onto dry, add some deeper tones to the background this helps emphasise the lighter tones in our main subject and we finish off with our foreground adding some interesting texture. This is a great piece to really understand our painting process and how we structure our work to achieve a great painting.

Today we are painting a scene similar to ones we’ve done before, but were doing this one in a different way, rather than three washes were doing it wet onto dry in just one wash so I chose a subject we’ve done before and something we see everyday, this one is called “On the bench”. We will use all 6 colours with dry paper and only one pass over the entire image but splitting the background form the subject. This is nice and short so you can watch it several times and try it several times. Do submit each attempt and I’ll critique each one. That’s the way we improve folks…

This is a fabulous image of a woman sat in the sunshine, (where we all want to be in January). What caught my eye was the shape and highlights in her hat so were calling this “The Red Hat”. Plenty of lights and shadows here and a nice textured foreground which blends to a calmer sea and sky, don’t merge you’re sea and sky colours too much you still want your horizon. This is nice an quick so you can do this several times and try to improve each one. Enjoy everyone…

This week it’s something a little different we’re painting something that could be anywhere in the world really, two geraniums outside an ornate window with the sun beaming across them beautifully casting shadows. There are no people or facial features to worry about here just use your brush to create shape, shadow and light areas. This is something a little different to our ‘people paintings’ as it’s always good fun to do something a little different and see how our brush strokes create the overall effect. Enjoy…

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE. Well nearly, it’s 31st December so I thought I’d get in there first. Todays painting is one of my favourite subjects, and I particularly like this one because they’re standing in the boat which is not an easy task in itself, there’s plenty of wet onto dry here with highlight retention being your primary objective, try to keep this one light and bright and most of all enjoy some downtime during this busy period with a little bit of painting…

Merry Christmas everyone, I thought a lovely themed Christmas painting of a little Robin amongst some festive holly in the snow would be perfect for this time of year.  This one is great for practicing maintaining highlights and we even use masking fluid here which I don’t normally like but here its perfect to protect the whites. Enjoy...

Who doesn’t love a man fishing? Our main subject is looking down wishfully into the water hoping for that little nibble on the fishing line whilst relaxing in a great pose for practising your skin tones. With bright sunshine and some deep colours in the quayside and on the man himself this is a great way to relax a little after our last few large and long paintings! Enjoy…

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…

The week its a sequel ! We did man and his shadow a while back so thought it only fair to do woman and her shadow too. This is perfect practice for all important shadow work, we want a nice light background with a dark yet colour filled shadow here, don’t go with greys or blacks use the colours mixing to create interest in your shadow areas. This is one you can do a few times so practice practice practice…

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 week we are painting a man and mans best friend. This is an intermediate tutorial but beginners should really give it a go too as it’s all the techniques we’ve used before. Happy painting and enjoy a nice simple one ready for something a little different next time ;-)…

After our marathon painting last week this one will be a nice easy one. It’s a simple painting broken down into simple stages. The photo is of three women sat looking out to sea on a crisp spring morning, Just the thing to remind us this heat won’t last forever, there’s plenty to enjoy here and its under an hour so you can really practice and hone those skills multiple times. I hope you really enjoy this one.

It’s my favourite comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, this is my 100th Tutorial on Paintwithgraham and I’m so glad I kept this one for today. There’s lots in this one and the final result is fantastic, we’re using wet in wet, wet on dry, some nice interpretations of colour by taking a black and white photo and imagining the colours that would be present in real life. I hope you’ve enjoyed our last 100 and look forward to adding more and more to our collections. Happy painting…

It’s the height of summer here and we’ve just had our hottest days on record so today we’re painting a rather aptly named ‘summer couple’ with plenty of bright highlights to keep and great bright vibrant tones in the clothes here its an exercise in tone management. We have a bright pavement with an area in darker shadow to show our depth of field too, but keep that shadow bright and varied, you’ll love doing this one and its a nice quick one so you can enjoy the sunshine with a glass of something afterwards …

This week were painting this stunning little side street in Venice. This is an intermediate level tutorial with our highlights falling onto the balconies of the background building so its all about creating the correct angle of sunlight, so stay focused on what im doing, our foreground is in shadow so were using some nice blues to give that darker feel but most of all this is something a little fun and different to try. Enjoy…

It’s summer, so we wanted to give you something quite fast paced this week so you can go and enjoy the sunshine, or do another painting maybe? This one is great for your brush control and PTW, preserve those whites. Using only 3 colours and two washes this is only 40 minutes but gives you a great look into how the white of the paper creates the light of highlights. You can do this lots of times to really get it right and will help loosen up your brushwork. Enjoy…

This week its something a little different, no people just lots of fun painting these two fantastic dogs cooling off from the summer heat. And today we are using just three colours. Thats right only our first three primary colours are used to create this great painting, plenty of retaining those whites here, some nice sharp highlights which in places we soften later, but this is a great way to practice your brush control. I hope you really enjoy this one…

This weekend is the Jubilee so we wanted a typical British scene to paint, being from Blackpool we decided a small boy with his bucket and spade couldn’t be more fitting. This is more of a challenge than it looks but what a great way to spend one of your extra Bank (National) Holiday days painting this beautiful image. Enjoy…

Lazing in the park, a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon… This is a great example for our intermediate students of capturing everyday life and turning it into a great piece of art. We’ve got some great highlights throughout the main subjects to maintain , a nice deep coloured background, and a bright and vibrant couple that just hop off the page with the lovely green grass drawing your eye towards them. Enjoy…

This week its something a little different for our beginner and intermediate members, this is 'Figure in sunlight' and no hairdryer until the very end and were starting and not letting anything dry in between, its a great exercise in brush control and how much pigment vs water you put on your brush. Get painting...

What a view to paint... He looked a little lonely up there on his own so I've added mans best friend. You can add your own dog if you feel that way inclined or use the reference I created. Either way this is a really great intermediate piece for us all to do, if you're an expert you'll still find it challenging and our beginners can still give this a go, stretch yourself and see what happens...

What better way to spend the weekend fishing, or painting fishing... This is a beginner intermediate piece for all to enjoy and its about brush control with some small marks and some lots sweeping strokes to create the dark foreground. You'll have lots of fun with this one...Its a really fun quick one to do but pay attention to getting your background cool and foreground warmish yellow, that sets him off beautifully, don’t forget those little pavement marks too enjoy...

This is an interesting painting because we have one simple main figure, but, we have some hard shadows (using dry brush onto dry paper) for his trousers and some nice soft shadows around the shirt area where we’re using wet onto wet and adding further pigment to it. Its a really fun quick one to do but pay attention to getting your background cool and foreground warmish yellow, that sets him off beautifully, don’t forget those little pavement marks too enjoy...

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…

The perfect intermediate tutorial… We keep our colours really clean and vibrant here and using simple lines to create the bench you can see how Graham adds colours into wet paint to create the variations in tone and how he adjusts for light and dark areas. Not forgetting to add our our two people with their backs on the bench we also have a vibrant blue sky with some movement all created by loose simple brush actions during that wash. You’ll really enjoy this one…

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.

I nearly called this one jaws because of his t-shirt but decided ‘Man and shadow’ was more what the painting is about.  We’ve done two long ones recently so this week is a great starter tutorial using only 3 colours and only 30 minutes long. Do it several times and try to improve each one. I’ve simplified this down, we’re putting one layer of wash to create a faint background for a little pigment as the pavement. Then we spend 20 minutes to do a single pass over our subject. That’s it. Simple…

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 quickie! It’s perfect for you to try several times. At just over 30 minutes it gives you a great opportunity to try and refine it each time you do it, it is also great as a beginners piece too. Happy painting.

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 fun little project to try a few times to practice some of our core skills. It's a quirky photo of two ladies stuck in an unfamiliar city, looking at their maps, trying to figure out where they're going, and I think it's something that's just fun to do. 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…

This is a fantastic beginner/intermediate piece. Its based on a photograph from San Francisco a few years back that I caught sort of by accident, its a woman walking her dog and i immediately loved the pose she was in. Rather than being pulled along by the dog she was in compete control and mid stride which gives quite a serene feel. I’d love to see a few of your own dogs instead of the drawing for our more experienced painters. That’s if you’re up to the challenge?

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.

This is great for beginners and above. It’s a common scene we see today; “Texting in the sun”. She’s sat reading her phone, as we all do, so I thought it was just an interesting shot of everyday modern life. This one’s nice and quick at just over an hour so you can try it a few times to see how much you can improve each time.

This week we are undertaking a more advanced tutorial, this is ‘Late Sunday afternoon’ and is just over 2 hours so its not for the feint of heart. But the result is an incredible painting with sharp chromes in our ice bucket and lovely soft sunlight on our main subject. You’ll really enjoy this…

Today we’re painting this charming scene of two boys fishing in the rock pools of Tenerife. It’s a lovely beginner tutorial for all levels to have go at and produces really fantastic results in just over an hour. I’m sure you’ll love this one…

This week we’re painting ‘Girls take a break’ a photo taken in sunny Tenerife. This is a nice intermediate piece that can be tried by all. We’re using a nice three colour wash to start and moving to six colours for our sharper detailed washes. It’s a great painting to really practice leaving those crisp brighter areas and then choosing which ones you want to soften. Give it a go and enjoy…

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...

Today we’re painting “San Francisco Lady” and this painting “has colours run like watercolour in the rain” as the great Al Stewart once sang in 'Year of the cat’. This is fantastic for creating fast paced soft blending using colours to create the effect her dress. We use the reflective tones to create a soft fabric feel in the bright sunlight. This is an intermediate piece and most of all its a fun one…

We've painted a version of this scene a long time ago but I think its worth revisiting, this time we have a great dark background, using all six colours blending together and a foreground with a lighter sandy tone for the pavement. Its one to do a few times and perfect for beginners.

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 “The Beach Boy” and has been requested by lots of my students that wanted a piece they can practice again and again to help master some of the techniques before moving on to more intermediate and advanced pieces. So give this a go, its a nice fast piece only 40 minutes and if you’re not happy with it you’ve enough time to give it a few goes. Enjoy…

Welcome to “Cattle Drive”, it’s one that people have asked for a lot and it looks even better in real life. We’ve lots of wet brush work to create a dusty feel and we keep this really loose, we’re not counting legs, we want more of a feel of movement and action. Give this one a go, you won’t regret it…

Today we’re painting something a little different, we don’t have any people in this one. We’re painting ‘Boat and Tractor’ and this is a challenge to keep the colours vibrant. Try to keep moving with your brush and grabbing colours, don’t get too hung up on following every colour I use, this is about blending colours on the paper to make the desired effect. If you want to take it a little slower you can play the video at half speed if you need.

We're back in New York and this time we're out for a walk painting "New York Walk". This is great for refining details on people. We use the normal six colours to create a soft background with some detail and then focus on our figure. It's great to hone your detail work on figures themselves. Happy painting.

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?

Today we’re in Venice, “The Floating City”. And we're looking out over the water (so get those blues ready) towards the Il Redentore, one of the iconic buildings of this lovely city. This is a nice beginner/intermediate piece with lots of soft backgrounds and our focus is on what is a regular site, a Gondolieri crossing the water. Enjoy…

Today we’re painting something a little different and fun. My horses (Tutorial #56) were so popular we thought we'd give you another animal to try. This time its called “Swanning around”, a picture of a swan taken in the Lake District (UK) and there’s a reflection to deal with so its definitely an intermediate piece. But don’t be afraid to give it a go! Happy painting …

Welcome back everyone, I thought that now all the new year festivities are over we’d get back to painting something more down to earth and this one is a nice quick one to get the creative juices flowing and it’s only just over 1 hour. We are painting ‘Two in a Canoe’, a great exercise in reflections in water, keeping the shadow areas light enough, whilst staying clearly shadows and it’s and intermediate painting. It’s a really enjoyable one and you’ll love the finished effect.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! This weeks tutorial is based on this incredible photo of New York. It's the Statue of Liberty with a beautiful boat in the foreground.  I love the water in this and we use a new technique with our ruler to create a detailed rigging effect on our boat to draw the eye. I know you'll all love this one !

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.

I don’t normally do a lot of animals but I took this photo nearby and I loved the fact you could switch in your own background. There’s a nice wet into wet wash with our three colours to start and we move onto some fantastic details and bright tones in the horses themselves whilst preserving the all important whites of the paper. I can’t wait to see what backgrounds you all use. Happy painting.

I'm home ! We're back in Blackpool, Britains most famous seaside town and we are painting this stunning tram scene which is a daily sight here. The iconic Blackpool tower fills the skyline behind and we will use lots of wet into wet adding some lovely detail in our tram lines. We will have lots of fun with this one.

This week we’re painting this fantastic 'street busker'. It’s a great painting to understand shadows, the hat he’s wearing creates a great shadow straight across the face and allows us to show the features of his face in both light and shadow using warm and cool shades to bring forward the subject matter where needed. You’ll love this one.

This fantastic picture of a girl riding a bike is todays tutorial. It has a great shadow cast onto the pavement where we will use some lovely darks to create a deep yet colourful shadow. There’s some lovely fine detail to do on the bike and we have to keep some areas sharp using our dry brush techniques and some softer using wet into wet. This is a gorgeous painting to hang on any wall, I know you’ll love doing this one.

Today we’re painting “Blue boat”, this is a boat with lovely reflections, sat on a bed of sand in a natural marina. It’s a great way to practice getting colours right for reflections and shadows along with a little bit of detail. Its great for all levels so grab your brushes and enjoy.

Today we’re painting “Just Looking”, I took this photo early morning and love how the man is just standing, gazing into the water. There’s a great opportunity here to use deep background shades to make the main subject ‘pop’ off the page. Grab your brushes and enjoy.

Today we’re painting “The Long Shadows”, this is one of my favourite things to do, big long shadows cast from direct sunlight, and two detailed figures walking with a soft out of focus pavement behind them. This is so much fun because you can hang this painting in any direction, you’ll see what I mean at the end, but before you sign it, decide which way up you are going to have it. Enjoy!

Today we’re painting “lost in thought” a single figure, sat alone on a quayside contemplating life (we think). This is a great painting to dip into when you have a spare hour to paint. It’s a brilliant piece to try several times to improve your techniques and lays the foundation for the larger paintings we do. Theres use of highlights, shadows, wet into wet and dry brush techniques. You’ll enjoy seeing the improvements each time you do this one. Enjoy.

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.

We've got three brand new, great tutorials this month. This “fisherman from the quayside” gives us opportunity to really use light and dark tones to create dramatic shadows and light areas to show the angle of the sun. There’s also some detail, but not too much, in the fisherman himself in order to make sure he looks grounded to the quayside and enjoying his days fishing. It’s great to be back and I hope you enjoy.

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 could be anywhere in the world, it's a painting of a couple holding hands walking down a promenade next to a beautiful blue and green sea. We use lots of colours in our shadows, whilst retaining the highlights using the white of the paper. Our background wash creates a grounding for our subjects feet, through the use of the sunlight casting shadows, and the lovely blurred background is created using wet in wet technique. It's a really fun painting that you'll really enjoy.

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.