Dynamic Seascapes - Painting in Acrylics - Southwell Library - Adult Learning

Explore how to convey the energy of crashing waves, the calm of open water, and the drama of coastal light. The course will encourage abstraction and personal interpretation, combining acrylics with tools like palette knives, sponges, and even mixed media to push your practice further.

Each week will introduce a new theme or challenge, such as painting changing skies, creating depth in water, or using colour to suggest emotion. Through group discussion, one-to-one feedback, and tutor-led demonstrations, you'll be supported in developing a confident and individual seascape painting style.

Through more complex compositions and expressive techniques, you’ll explore how to use colour, light, and brushwork to convey atmosphere, movement, and emotion. You’ll also have the opportunity to work on a personal project, refine your palette, and experiment with larger-scale or more ambitious pieces. You’ll be encouraged to respond intuitively to your subject and develop a looser, more confident painting approach.

Resources required:

Acrylic or watercolour paper A3 pad

White acrylic gesso

40x 50cm or A4 stretched canvas

Acrylic paint (Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Magenta, Cadmium Red, Titanium White)

Synthetic brushes

Funding and Fees

If you receive certain benefits, you may be able to take the course for free.
If money is stopping you from enrolling, please visit our funding page to see what help is available.

Living in England

To book and join one of our courses, you must live in England permanently and either:

• Live inside the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) area (Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire)

or

• Live outside the devolved areas listed below

You cannot enrol if you live in these devolved areas:

• Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

• Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

• North East Combined Authority

• South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority

• Tees Valley Combined Authority

• West Midlands Combined Authority

• West of England Combined Authority

• West Yorkshire Combined Authority

• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority

• York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority

• Hull and East Yorkshire

• Greater Lincolnshire

• Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority

• Cornwall Council

• Lancashire Combined County Authority

• Buckinghamshire Council

Residency Requirements (Additional Information)

If you live in the UK on a visa, we’ll need evidence of your visa to confirm funding. You can upload this when applying, and you’ll need to complete a short questionnaire.

Some exceptions include:

• Your visa must last until after your course ends.

• Asylum seekers must have lived in the UK for at least 6 months while their claim is being processed.

• You are supported by your local authority under Section 23C or 23CA of the Children Act 1989, or under the Care Act 2014.

Anyone who does not meet the funding criteria would need to pay full course fees.