Mixed Media Next Steps - Florals - LOCO Centre - Adult Learning

Unlock your creativity and bring florals to life through mixed media! In this fun and inspiring course, you’ll explore how to use paint, collage, and stitch to create rich, layered floral artworks. Working into a repurposed hardback book, you’ll build your own beautiful altered art sketchbook full of colour, texture, and personal expression.

This course is ideal for anyone with a love of creativity and an interest in experimenting with different art techniques. Whether you're a returning learner or exploring mixed media for the first time, you’ll find plenty of inspiration, guidance, and space to play.

Course summary - what will be covered on the course?

• You will be introduced to a range of mixed media techniques that celebrate the beauty of florals. You’ll work into an altered hardback book as your canvas, exploring how to layer materials and add texture and depth to your pages.

You’ll experiment with:

• Creating your own collage papers;

• Mark making with drawing and painting;

• Using modelling paste and stencils for texture;

• Painting with acrylics and watercolours;

• Stitching into paper and fabric to add tactile elements.

You’ll learn how to combine these techniques in a thoughtful and creative way, resulting in expressive floral artworks that reflect your own artistic style. The book you create will be the start of an ongoing sketchbook and a rich source of inspiration for future personal or professional projects.

What will learners achieve by the end of the course?

• Create a floral collage using at least three different paper types and apply basic principles of layering and composition.

• Combine paint and collage techniques to create depth and texture in a single piece of work.

• Apply simple hand-stitching techniques to enhance mixed media artwork on paper.

• Produce a finished floral artwork in your altered book that blends collage, paint, and stitch with your personal style.

• Share your work with others and give thoughtful feedback, using reflection techniques to grow your own artistic confidence.

• Develop transferable creative skills such as composition, colour theory, and texture-building that are valuable in roles in arts, education, design, or wellbeing-related fields.

• Build confidence in presenting creative work and discussing your ideas—ideal for anyone interested in progressing to further learning, exhibiting, or working with others in creative settings.

What you will need to bring to the course:

Essential Resources/ Materials needed for the first session:

• A notebook or sketchbook and pen/pencil.

• An A5 sized hardback book from either a charity shop or it could be an old novel from your shelf at home that you no longer use.

• Different interesting paper to print onto e.g. – envelopes, white tissue paper, packing paper, paper bags, newspaper, book pages, maps etc. No need to buy anything, just see what you can find around your home.

• A set of basic acrylic paints (available from B&M, The Artworks, Hobbycraft, The Range)

Books to inspire you:

• Painted Botanical Collage by Tracey English

• Funky Florals: Mixed Media Collage by Elizabeth J St Hilaire

• Georgia O'Keeffe: One Hundred Flowers (Miniature Editions - Phaidon Press)

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.