Sketching & Painting with Watercolour - Bury St Edmunds

This eight-week course is term time only. Thursday 6pm - 9pm.

"Enrol by 3rd Janaury 2026 and save 5% on your course fee — no code needed!"

In this course, you'll explore and experiment with sketching using watercolour pencils and painting with traditional watercolours. With guidance and support from our experienced tutor, you’ll build confidence in the basics and gradually develop your own creative style.

Sketching with watercolour pencils

Watercolour pencils are perfect to use because they are adaptable, clean and portable. Though they are similar to normal pencils, it is when you add water that their uniqueness appears. When learning how to use watercolour pencils, we will be experimenting with lots of different techniques on scrap paper and when confident using them on finished sketches.

Together we will complete several projects and you will need watercolour pencils, a set of brushes suitable for watercolour, a pencil sharpener, good quality paper and a jar of water, tissues for blotting your brush and a plastic eraser - all essential materials for this course.

We will revisit and develop the skills and techniques of watercolour pencil sketching, which include crosshatching, brushing out colour, brushstrokes, blotting, wet on dry, dry on wet, dry on dry, grading colour, learning how to achieve light and shade. We will also cover the rules of perspective, composition and texture that will help us to finalise our watercolour pieces.

Painting with watercolour

Watercolours have a translucent, light quality and are great to experiment with brushstrokes and details. The important tools for watercolour painting are a sketchpad, paints, brushes, a jar for water, a palette, a board, a pencil, watercolour paper, tissue and a putty eraser. The paints are available in pans and tubes. Tubes can be useful when painting large areas, whereas pans are smaller and easier to transport. It is crucial to have a good quality watercolour paper when doing the final pieces because watercolour paint makes a feature of the paper they are painted on.

We will experiment with a variety of techniques including highlights using tissue paper, wet-in-wet, achieving a gradient effect, using a dry brush and building up on light and shade, hatching, crosshatching and solid shading.

Together we will learn and improve our skills, having fun through exploring different watercolour techniques and developing our individual styles.

If you have any questions please contact us on E: [email protected]

Who is this course suitable for?

This course is suitable for both beginners and students who have already attended our previous courses and workshops. If you are new to this, there is no need to worry, you will be under the professional supervision of our art tutor, Marina.

What You Will Need:

Please bring along any watercolour drawing materials you have to the first session and the tutor will advise what you will need for subsequent classes.

If you have any questions regarding materials please ask.

All our courses run based on a minimum number of participants.

If you are no longer able to attend, please contact us at your earliest convenience. Cancellations received within 2 days of the course start date are non-refundable.

Missed sessions by individual students are non-refundable.

When purchasing more than one ticket—whether for yourself or on behalf of others—you must provide the correct individual information for each attendee. Duplicate or identical information cannot be used for multiple tickets and may result in registration issues.

If you have any questions, please contact us E: [email protected]

Term Dates:

Spring Term 15.01.26 - 12.03.26 (Half Term 19/2)

Summer Term 16.04.26 - 11.06.26 (Half Term 28/5)

About your tutor:

Marina T-Harrison has a BA Hons in Arts ( BA in Painting, Electives in Scenography, and Conservation and Restoration) and Master in Arts (MA in Scenography, Theatre Direction Pathway).

Her educational background is built on the values of the University of Arts London, where she completed her education in the arts at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Marina has been teaching at WSC for several years, on many art courses and workshops.

Whether you are interested to have art as a hobby and a leisure activity, or pursue a career in the arts, Marina is a strong believer that you can achieve this at any stage of your life.

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Host or Publisher Bury St Edmunds Learning Centre at WSC