New Exciting Art Courses for 2025

Original oil painting by Jane 2024

'Student's Choice' (Osborne House, Carisbrooke Castle, Industrial Sites and Canals/waterways) 

Northwood Village Hall, starting Friday 17th January, 10:00am to 12:30pm, £80 

Feel free to paint any of the suggested themes above or if you have something in mind you wish to paint then please do

'Student's Choice' (Osborne House, Carisbrooke Castle, Industrial Sites and Canals/waterways) 

Bembridge Village Hall, starting Thursday 23rd January, 10:00am to 12:30pm, £75 

Feel free to paint any of the suggested themes above or if you have something in mind you wish to paint then please do

'Subject to be confirmed' Northwood Village Hall, starting Friday 28th February, 10:00am to 12:30pm, £80 

'Subject to be confirmed' Bembridge Village Hall, starting Thursday 6th March, 10:00am to 12:30pm, £75 

If you would like to join any of the above course or would like a one to one private classes please use the contact box or email me at iowartclasses@hotmail.com

Season's Greetings & Happy New Year!

Happy Painting!!

Lee Papworth 🎨

New Upcoming Courses - September and October 2024

Original Watercolour 'Battersea Pumphouse' by Lee Papworth

Northwood Village Hall - 4 week drawing/painting 'A View of my Hometown (city, town, village of your childhood)' commencing Friday 20th September 2024 10:00 - 12:30pm, £80

Bembridge Village Hall - 4 week drawing/painting 'Stormy Seascapes/Landscapes' commencing Thursday 3rd October 2024 10:00 - 12:30pm, £75

Northwood Village Hall - 4 week drawing/painting 'Coves, Caves and Peninsulas' commencing Friday 1st November 2024 10:00 - 12:30pm, £80

Bembridge Village Hall - 4 week drawing/painting 'Coves, Caves and Peninsulas' commencing Thursday 7th November 2024 10:00 - 12:30pm, £75

Other single day classes will be added soon. If you would like to join any of the above courses please use the contact form on this page.  One-to-One classes are also available.

Happy Painting! 

Lee Papworth 🎨

Original Watercolour 'Battersea Park Pagoda' by Lee Papworth

Painting Bridges, Rivers and Streams Art Course

Original Acrylic Painting by Linda 2019

With the usual mix of students that are just starting painting to people that have been attending my classes for two or three years and some for perhaps four or five years, I think you will agree that all of them are splendid efforts - most of them excellent! 

Original Oil painting by Gordon 2019

Original Oil Painting by Jo 2019

Original Pastel Painting by Mandy 2019

Original Oil Painting by Simonne 2019

Original Oil Painting by Terry 2019

Unfinished Original Watercolour by Derek 2019

Original Oil Painting by John 2019

Unfinished Acrylic Painting by Trudie 2019

Original Oil Painting by Jean 2019

Original Oil Painting by Meryel 2019

Original Oil Painting by Jim 2019

Thank you for all the students who allowed their work to be shared on this post and to everyone who attended for making the course such a great success!

If you would like to attend one of my classes or have one-to-one tuition please use the contact form on this blog.

Happy Painting!

Lee 🎨

Painting Scenes from Abroad - June 2018 Art Course

Original oil painting in progress by Pam 2018

My latest course has recently just finished.  This was the exotic sounding 'Scenes from Abroad.'  All ten students rose to the challenge and provided paintings of scenes from as far afield as the Seychelles, Croatia, Spain, France and others.  

Although some these wonderful paintings are unfinished you can still get a sense of atmosphere, colour and vibrancy.  The results of the course are shown below:

Original pastel painting by Mandy 2018

Original unfinished acrylic painting by Kevin

Original gouache painting by Jean 2018

Original oil painting by Susan 2018

Original pastel painting by Mandy 2018

Original unfinished acrylic painting by Diana 2018

Original oil painting by Gordon 2018

Original acrylic painting by Trudie 2018

Thank you to everyone who shared their work on this post and also to the rest of the group.  You all made the course a great success!

If you would like to join one of my courses or have one-to-one tuition please use the blog contact form.

Happy Painting!

Lee 🎨

The Process of a Painting - The Lighthouse (New Beginnings) by Lee Papworth

Original oil painting 'The Lighthouse (New Beginnings) by Lee Papworth 2018

This post is all about the process of creating a painting. In this case I am using oil paints.  The finished painting above was created to coincide with a painting course entitled 'Painting Lighthouses.' I started with an idea of what to paint and researched my subject.  Then I purchased the correct size of canvas for this painting.  DO NOT treat this part of the process lightly as it is vitally important to choose the right size support (canvas/canvas board) for your work and not try to fit your work into the wrong size/shape of canvas.  I produced numerous sketches from my research and a few are shown below:

From the sketches I worked up the watercolour sketch seen below:

My next step was to prepare my canvas.  I put the stretchers in the corners of the canvas using a hammer (when buying a canvas you must make sure that it comes with stretchers which are small triangular pieces of wood).  The stretchers keep your canvas taut and increase the longevity of your work.  

 Next was to put a ground on the canvas (a base colour to work from).  A ground can be any colour - traditionally they would have been earth colours such as burnt umber and raw umber.  I say they can be any colour, but please bear in mind that whatever colour you use will influence the colour of the paint you directly apply on top of the ground and thus effect the harmony of the overall painting.  With my ground I chose to use yellow ochre which I liberally applied and then used a technique called 'tonking' to remove excess paint and leave behind a mottled surface. The photographs below show how I used newspaper to remove the excess paint (tonking):

I then started blocking in the final composition onto the canvas:

Next I started the actual painting by adding the sky.  Note how the warm ground influences and complements the blues of the sky:

At this point (session two) I decided to roughly paint in the main colours and forms.  

I then started building the painting by adding details.  See the photographs below to watch how the painting develops into its final state:

The last photo is my finished painting 'The Lighthouse (New Beginnings).'  It took eight sessions - roughly ten hours work - to complete.  I also took a photo of my palette to show you my process of colour mixing and that you should always mix up your paint using a palette knife rather than your brushes as this will save damaging your expensive brushes.  

If you would like to join one of my art courses or have one-to-one tuition please contact me using the blog contact form.  The next two courses are in May and June.

Happy Painting!

Lee Papworth 🎨

All photographs and images copyright of the artist Lee Papworth 2018

Painting Animals in the Landscape - February 2018

Original acrylic painting by Helen 2018

I recently finished teaching a new and exciting course 'Animals in the Landscape'.  The students had a choice of picking domestic pets, farm animals or more exotic wild animals.  Nearly all the students had never tackled the subject before.  Given this fact I feel that the following paintings are very successful and some are even outstanding.

Original acrylic painting by Maria 2018

Original oil painting by Jean 2018

Original oil painting by Simonne 2018

Original unfinished acrylic painting by Geoff 2018

Original pencil study and unfinished acrylic painting by Helen 2018

Original oil painting by Meryel 2018

Original acrylic painting by Vicki 2018

Original oil painting by Simonne 2018

Detail of original unfinished acrylic painting by Kevin 2018

Original oil painting by Jean 2018

Thank you to all the students who gave permission for their work to be shared on the blog and to all the students for making the course such a success!

If you would like to join one of my classes or have one-to-one tuition using any medium please contact me using the blog contact form.

Happy Painting!

Lee 🎨