Gold Coast Painting Workshop insight
looking back at our gold coast painting workshop
With a solid year of painting workshops ahead for 2026, its time to kick off our learning year with our very first masterclass, and I am excited to be back at it with you all too! Im making my way to the Gold Coast this morning to spend 5 days with my students, learning all about realistic watercolour painting for a perfect creative pause. Dipping our toes into this wonderful craft and a bunch of new and beautiful painting subjects and challenges, were set for a beautiful week of good company in a beautiful location around our shared loves.
Our studio for the week is the Pottery and Sculpture Society home ground once again, which is such a cozy space for us to settle in to and call home for now. Theres plenty on offer for my students too, as we come together to share creative time together, with plenty of learning along the way. These in-person events are an ideal opportunity to receive real knowledge and guidance, tailored to your personal needs and creative objectives in a welcoming environment. Here, our focus is on learning and enjoying, and Im looking forward to seeing you all grow again for our practice.
Starting our workshop out, our focus is on botanical illustration, capturing a graceful stem of foxgloves with all their wonderful colours, textures and classic foxglove punctuations this flower holds. With this focus were looking at practical strategies and approaches, beautiful colour use, we talk about the importance of creating environments in our work, and all the painting techniques needed for this subject, gaining new knowledge and confidence as we go. A challenge indeed… can my students do it? They sure can! What a wonderful job they did of it too, moving with every step to gather the full perspective in time. Heres a look at the foxglove component of this workshop together.
Bringing a touch of whimsy to our week, ive created a coupled composition for even more learning, dipping ourselves into the magic of bird painting for a whole new angle, complexity, consideration and experience with this gorgeous combination. I have a super sweet female rose robin Ive wanted to play with for some time, with huge thanks to Andrew Haysom. She has the loveliest little pose, and the sweetest expression and feeling to her. Coupled with the foxglove, her face pops out from behind our flower stem to create a really delicate and fun story that has a little magic to it. What was two separate elements takes on a whole new life, really highlighting the wonderful extra dimension bird illustration brings to the table. New subject, new depth of our paintings, and a whole lot of new learning comes with it.
Finally we switch gears to render our final subject for this workshop, learning all about a beautiful butterfly subject to give us a taste of an even more refined and intricate balance in our watercolour painting experience. Here we take all our new knowledge and confidence with us to explore our finer touch and balances further. We use our techniques in combination with a focus on dry brushing, exploring the subtleties within our rich tones and shift into really powerful colours for a completely different balance, story and lesson. Again, my students moved with the changes and new challenge to learn more about the beauty of our subject and realistic watercolour painting. Our butterflies brought a perfect close to our workshop and week, touching on so many important aspects of this wonderful work.
Thank you to Pablo Martinez-Darve Sanz for our butterfly reference. Thank you to all of my amazing students, who continue to inspire me with every workshop spent together. It was a lovely week and I thank yo for everything you brought to the group, for your enthusiasm and willingness to learn and grow with me. You can watch some short clips on this workshop in the links below. You can see whats on offer if youd like to learn too, with a range of in-person painting workshops in Australia and abroad, and loads of painting lessons online now too… so theres something for everyone! I hope to see you along the way!
Workshop Insights
- 2026 Gold Coast 5 Day Painting Workshop – Bird and Botanical
- 2026 Gold Coast Painting Workshop – 1 Day Butterfly Study Component
********************************
Full Painting Workshop Calendar
Cant make it in person? Why not join us online!
