Our Kingfisher Painting Workshop – Gold Coast
Student work
Ive just returned from the weeks wonderful 5 day KINGFISHER ILLUSTRATION PAINTING WORKSHOP on the gorgeous GOLD COAST, and its time to catch my breath and reflect on our time together, learning all about bird illustration and watercolour painting. What a beautiful group it was, once again, to work with… Honestly, my students are the best! I am always so touched by their willingness to come and learn something new, their determination in the challenge, and their openness to just explore the process. I so enjoy seeing their thrill when theyve achieved something wonderful. It keeps me coming back every time as I feel so enriched too.
This week we enjoyed a 5 day painting workshop of watercolour painting and kingfisher illustration, the second in my super popular Kingfisher painting workshop tour! The first was in Melbourne exploring the Sacred Kingfisher, this event also worked with the Azure Kingfisher and the next painting workshop will be over three days on the Sunshine Coast this June, most likely exploring the Forest Kingfisher… so three events doing a deep dive of three different kingfishers.
Gosh, arent they all just divine too! These have been such a wonderful painting subject to explore, presenting us with soooo much learning opportunity and Id say weve covered it all. Of course this isnt just relevant to kingfisher illustration, its the knowledge and process we need for all realistic watercolour painting, and bird illustration in general, so a perfect foundation for my students to build on from here in all directions.
With the gift of two extra days in this event, we explored two Kingfisher subjects which allowed us to discover even more about the subject, and about the various possible painting techniques and approaches for the challenge. This gives students a thorough understanding of the options and allows them to mix and match approaches with suitable techniques, their goals, what they enjoy most and with what feel suits and serves them best. Within this we dabbled in wash, glaze, dry brush, creating relevant texture, as well as some fun switching things up a little, playing with wet in wet for a change too. The combination of all these things resulted in some truly wonderful results across the bird… ooops, across the board!
Two Kingfisher paintings in hand, our time together came to a close… and as I put it, the Gold Coast weather may have been grey but our lively little paintings definitely were not 💙🧡 These events are far more than just the painting, its a chance to slow down, nurture yourself, explore something new, be creative, meet new people and enjoy new places and I saw, and enjoyed, plenty of that this week. Thank you ALL so much for being a part of this event, it was a pleasure and I hope to work with you all again soon.
*****************************************************************************************
Special thanks to Liz Bamber and Andrew Haysom for allowing us to work from their original photographic images for this event. We deeply appreciate you 🙏🏻
*****************************************************************************************
When will I be back on the Gold Coast? Well weve just locked in dates for another 5 day painting event with Artable in the first week in October. By request, weve decided to cover a range of beautiful Natural History painting subjects from BOTANICAL to SMALL BIRDS and perhaps a little BUTTERFLY in the mix, so that is shaping up to be another fun week together, learning more about realistic watercolour illustration and painting in this awesome location. If this is for you, let Artable know and I will see you there.
What else is on the painting workshop calendar this year? Well check out my post to discover more, which you can always find on the HOME PAGE of my website if you need to revisit this again. I have just a few places remaining in my 3 day Sunshine Coast KINGFISHER event in June, and the same for Brisbane exploring SMALL BIRDS over 3 days and BUTTERFLIES for another 2 while i am there. You can do one or all, its up to you but these run concurrently which is great.
*****************************************************************************************
Again, dont forget I also have ONLINE PAINTING TUTORIALS you can enjoy which is a wonderful option with over 20,000 students joining me there, or you can join our creative PATREON community for plenty of insights on my work, projects, news and of course, a PAINTING LESSON EVERY MONTH to enjoy. Of course, you can always find one of the past painting lessons to delve into there too so give these options some thought too. They are all wonderful ways to learn, grow and enjoy your painting journey too.
*****************************************************************************************
important notice!!!
Finally, 2 important notes – You can always find my workshop calendar on the HOME PAGE of my website if you ever do need to find that again and really sadly, I am seeing cases of ‘people’ trying to sell FAKE workshop tickets to my events at a discounted rate. THESE ARE SCAMMERS. DO NOT CONTACT THEM. Tickets are ONLY sold through event agents noted for each event and will never be onsold in this way, so please take care there, and in general. Its a barrage of absolutely constant scamming bullshit out there and its really blowing my mind lately…. here at least, youll always find the real deal. I look forward to working with you soon ❤️
*****************************************************************************************