Garden Painting in Acrylics - Southwell Library - Adult Learning

Southwell Library, Southwell

Date	2 June - 7 July 2026
Sessions	Tuesdays: 10:30am - 1pm
No. sessions	6
Venue	Southwell Library, Southwell View venue details
For ages	19+
Group size	5 - 8
Cost	FREE - £60

About this course

The garden painting course guides you through the process of painting with acrylics to create a colourful, vibrant and unique composition. The tutor will help you offering instruction and demonstration on how to use colour, texture and perspective to achieve a painterly, Impressionistic style. With practical advice on colour mixing, techniques and exploring composition ideas, learners can develop the necessary skills to approach a painting using acrylic paint to achieve exciting and dramatic effects. You’ll work from photo references, completing several small paintings while learning key techniques, such as color mixing, layering, and capturing the fine details of flowers.

This course is designed to guide you through the process of painting flowers in acrylics, using photographic references to develop your skills and confidence in nature painting. With practical advice on colour mixing, techniques and exploring composition ideas, learners can develop the necessary skills to approach a painting using acrylic paint to achieve exciting and dramatic effects. By the end of the course, you will have completed at least one painting and gained a toolkit of acrylic techniques to continue exploring nature-themed art independently. Most importantly, you’ll leave with a greater appreciation for flowers and a growing confidence in your artistic abilities.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

- Completed Artist research: Soraya French and Haidee Jo Summers

- Sketch and draw a composition

- Simplify and separate tonal values into areas of light and shadow,

- Use contrast, warm and cool colours effectively

- Create naturalistic greens linked to colour mixing

- Develop and implement a marketing plan using at least 3 different channels (e.g., social media, email marketing, and local events) to promote their products.

What you will need to bring to the course:

Acrylic paper/sketch pad

A4 canvas

white gesso

a range of synthetic paint brushes

photo reference

metallic palette knife

Acrylic paint (student grade):

- Red (Magenta, Cadmium Red

- Yellow (Lemon and Cadmiun Yellow)

- Blue (Ultramarine, and Cerulean)

- Titanium white

Booking your place and fee information

If you receive certain benefits you will be offered the course for free, however if you have a financial barrier which may prevent you from enrolling on the course, please visit our funding page for further information.

Residency in England

To book and enrol on one of our courses, you must be living in England permanently and live outside of the devolved areas listed below or live within the East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) devolved area (Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire).

Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Greater London
Greater Manchester
Liverpool City Region
Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland
Tees Valley
West of England
West Midlands
West Yorkshire

Residency Eligibility – other criteria

If you are living in the UK on a visa we will require evidence of this in order to be funded for the course, you can upload this evidence when you apply for the course. (completion of a questionnaire will be required).

Some exceptions may apply for example

Your visa expiry date must be beyond the end of your course
Asylum seekers must have lived in the UK for 6 months or longer while their claim is being considered by the Home Office
You are receiving local authority support under section 23C or section 23CA of the Children Act 1989 or the Care Act 2014

Any learner who is not funded full cost fees would apply to these courses.