Something a little different, the week we paint these “Two doves”. This painting relies on crisp detail on the two birds and a warm background showing the heat of the Tenerife sun. Keep you background abstract and your birds with just enough detail and you’ll create something special…

This week we’ve got a nice intermediate level tutorial. Lots of water showing reflection and ripples. The important figure has no facial feature to pain so it simplifies things somewhat. With our water we want to ensure we have some nice movement where the dog is paddling in the water, study the reference well and you won’t go wrong here. Enjoy…

This weeks painting is the first that we filmed in 2025 and we thought we’d start simple again, one figure, and a nice, light and sandy beach as the background. This is only 35 minutes and you can redo this one again and again and see each version improve on the last. Enjoy…

This week we take a break from painting people and focus on this beautiful Clematis that grew in our Garden last year . It makes a prefect botanical subject to paint. But we only use 3 colours, just 3 pigments to create this amazing paining that you’ll be so proud to hang in your house. Enjoy…

This week we’re painting this lovely image of young cyclists next to the Thames. A great light and dark piece that uses the opposing contrast to really draw your eye to very specific areas. Keep your brush nice and loose here and you’ll come out with some great results. Enjoy

This week we are painting one of my idols. This is simply called ‘Bowie”. We have a lot to do in this painting, plenty of wet into wet and ensuring we keep that background dark enough and the face light enough to maintain the highlights. If you do you’ll get a great result and come away with a great painting to really be a talking point on your wall. Happy New Year…

This time we're painting a still life of one of my own photos taken a while ago now but I love the illustrative feel of this painting which is created by the text on the cup and the little logos I’ve kept this time. Take your time on this and you'll get a really vibrant bright result. Enjoy…

Welcome to this weeks tutorial, we’re painting this stunning “Old Ford”. I took this photo quite a while ago now but always loved how the light shines off the various angles and shapes the car gives us, It also gives a lovely stark contrast compared to the softer foliage, This is the painting to really practice your highlights using the white paper to create lighter areas, and even though I don’t do it much n the tutorial, you’ll probably want to lift a fair amount especially if you don’t think if yourself as an expert. Enjoy…

He’s still waiting in that queue even after all this time! We painted this chap last year as part of a larger painting, this time we’re zooming in on a single subject and we will keep it to just two layers using all six colours from the start. This is a great one to use our techniques in a different way and is really fun to do at just under an hour. That means you really can try this one several times and see your improvements with each version. Enjoy…

This week is an advanced piece for our members. Creating dark indoor tones with vibrant lights reflecting off our hero of the piece, the saxophonist. There’s lots of wet into wet here to create that lovely background and some great lifting off at the end to create those bright highlights. Enjoy…

This week is an antidote to some of the more complex paintings we’ve been doing. A single wash and a little tweaking to create this wonderful little piece called “Just Chilling”. A single figure for simplicity with a variety of textures in our background to create some interest. Get your shadows right and your colours bright and you won’t go far wrong here, enjoy…

This week we go a little more in depth into one of our intermediate pieces “Getting ready to fish”. This brings us some great use of our colours to create dark rocks. We don’t want muddy brown so we mix them on the paper to keep the colour really vibrant. This one is just over an hour and thirty minutes so we split it into reasonable sections, doing our first wash, main wash on the person and finally the background plus a little tweaking. I really hope you enjoy this one…

This week is a lovely still life composition of my own. Its called ‘Potting shed’ and is a great piece to practice wet onto dry. We use just two washes here, one for the background and then a second more intense wash using more pigment to bring out our plant as the hero of the piece. You can do this several times as it’s only just an hour and see how you improve each time. Enjoy…

Wow, this week we have a fabulous project of painting a dog perched at the front of a boat! He is clearly the ‘king’ of the piece but there’s also smooth reflective surfaces, animal fur, and floral elements to create in our background. This is a challenge for all of our members so give it a go and I look forward to seeing your work in our gallery. Enjoy…

What a great way to end the summer, a beautiful photo, one of my own featuring this really interesting “rusty old bike”. This is about letting the negative space do the work, don’t get hung up on every spoke, create a feel of spokes with loose brushstrokes and let the paper shine through to create your highlights and emphasise the shapes you’re creating, This is great for all levels and can’t wait to see some in our gallery. Enjoy…

This week we are painting a simple single figure in a great pose from Tenerife. It’s called “Hey, what’s up?” A great pose from our main subject gives a really happy feel to this painting and allows us to use all of our techniques, preserve those whites, a light first wash and wet onto wet and wet onto dry to create a soft background. Enjoy…

This week we are painting something sentimental to my wife Pauline. This is just simply called ‘Daffs’ but the beautiful dove piece next to the daffodils was given to pauline on her 18th birthday. I've set this still life in a nice bright window upstairs to catch all of the glorious sunshine streaming across both elements, we’ve got soft flowers with some nice white porcelain and an intricate vase too, so its a tricky painting to get right but its a lovely still life to really get your teeth into. Enjoy…

As the second part of our double tutorial weekend we are really pleased to introduce “Rock Singer” This is a really different image to my usual choices and creates some fun challenges along the way. We use several washes here building layer on layer and this is a difficult piece to master, but try and try again and you’ll be really surprised with your results. Enjoy our 150th Tutorial.

This week its our double tutorial to catch up on the one we couldn’t launch whilst Phil was in Hospital. This is a nice single wash to create the wonderful ‘couple walking’ and we use all six colours in our first wet on dry wash and then use some lifting techniques once its dried to create a little additional highlight in several areas. Its a nice and short tutorial, at under an hour, so enjoy…

This week we are painting something that looks simple but gives us the perfect opportunity to really practice creating whites using our 6 usual colours. Our background colours are really important here as they create our soft focus background and make the pillow cases feel bright and sunny. We also use plenty of subtle colour in our white pillow cases to create shape and form. It’s a great painting to really hone your white techniques and it’s only 50 minutes so you can try a few times and see your improvement each time. Enjoy…

This week I’ve followed on from our very basic reflections but using just our three colours creating a more intermediate look at reflections of people. We have four great walking poses, to work at, all in differing positions, with added umbrella’s which creates yet another element, We’ve got it all going on here, pavement lines, strong reflections, details, umbrella shapes and we must not forgot those all important highlights. Don’t fill in all the space, you need those whites. Enjoy…

This weeks tutorial is another in my animal series, this time were painting “Seagulls on the shore”. This is a great way to really practice using bright colours and light in our background and foreground to enhance a fairly simple main subject matter. This painting really uses wet reflections well and shows how simple brushstrokes can enhance your paintings final outcome, you can try this one a few times and really enjoy improving each time. Enjoy

This week we’re painting a still life. It’s one of my favourite times of the day especially if the coffee is made in a lovely cafetière, and that’s what we have here, a bright white espresso cup for those lovely bright tones and our worn down silver cafetière for some loose reflections. Using simple shapes in the whole painting keeps detail to a minimum and you can focus on really staying loose. Enjoy…

After our advanced tutorial last time we’re doing a simple, single figure. This is what I start with on my in-person workshops. We have one focal point being the woman, and we can let our background run a little so we’re genuinely not too focused on background details. We do just one wash, and this is perfect for beginners and intermediate students alike. I really hope you enjoy this as it’s a great way to have some fun with your background and try to make your single figure the star of the painting. Enjoy…

Let’s get back to painting some figures, and this week we’ve got one of my favourite topics. Buskers make great subjects for “studies of light and shadow” because they are usually in the direct sunlight and so focused on their music there is an intensity and focus about what they’re doing, and that’s what we have to capture. This guy also has a great hat that masks the face but gives us great highlights and so we are going to do one wash only using the bright whites of the paper for our highlights, no first wash, no little adjustments, just one pass creates the entire painting. This is quite advanced so if you’re starting out, either slow the video down to half speed or watch 20 mins then go back and paint that section, take a break and repeat. Take your time here and really preserve those highlights. Enjoy…

Happy Mothers day to everyone in the UK! And what better way to spend your free afternoon than painting a little something just for you. This is a departure from our normal figures and we’ve gone for a yellow iris with lots of wet into wet to make our smooth soft edges in the background and a little more crisp and detailed work inside our main flower for focus, just make you background darker than your flower here, and this is a great way to relax for an hour and a half…

This week we’re doing this fantastic painting of “Girl with the striped top”. This uses our normal process of a three colour first wash and using our 6 colours to add depth and tone to our main subject, then we add the dark top background which makes our highlights pop off the page and finally add a little texture to our foreground. You’ll really love this one and you can do it a few times to really master highlights. Enjoy…

This week we’re doing a really quick single wash painting. It’s called ‘sunshine messages’ and is a photo of something we see everyday, a lady sat outside catching up on social life by phone! The challenge here is preserving whites correctly, look for your soft lines and crisp lines to keep those highlights as bright as you can, try it a few times and see if you can improve each time. It’s a nice easy piece to get us ready for some of my more complicated paintings coming up. Enjoy...

This week is a beautiful image of a father and son fishing from the steps in Tenerife. This is a great tutorial for all abilities and is broken down into easy sections. You can start with the usual light wash followed by focusing on our two fisherman, then the sea and the dark background steps make our two fishermen lift off the page and become the stars of the painting. You’ll all enjoy this one.

Remember when we were ‘Back in the pub’ well this image is a close up from that very painting that were going to do in more detail. He’s looking quite sombre as he contemplates life over a good old British Pint. Lot’s of light to use here, in fact its the most important element, use it to accent where the brights hit his face and the table in front of him is important as it bounce light back onto him too. Use those deep tones to create a rich, wood effect, and don’t forget to let the soft furnishings feel nice and rounded. This is great for all levels.

And now for something totally different… Yellow Beetle is a fabulous painting that everyone can complete. No figures here but plenty of detail to add as we create this beautiful image from Mexico. Lots of wet into wet with a little bit of wet into dry for our crisp details and we add a final layer of dark detail to really accentuate the colours and highlights here. This is a great tutorial for all abilities and a fun way to start your new year.

It’s Christmas season and what better way to celebrate than painting our winter scene. This is ‘Snow Shadows’ and is a beautiful composition of my own using two photos to create this stunning snow painting. This year we aren’t using any masking fluids, we’re going old school and using the paper to create our highlights. Plenty of colour is still used in our surroundings to accent the whites, a great painting for all abilities. Merry Christmas everyone.

This is our second painting in our cycling series and is faster paced and has a little more detail. We kept our Charleston cyclist very loose but here we’re spending some more time focusing on the bike detail, still loose, but a little more focused and precise. Plus our background matches more with our reference. We’re trying to improve our observations and retain detail from our reference photo this time whilst moving slightly faster to ‘keep it loose’. We’re not fine art painting just adding a little more precision here. Enjoy…

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.