Painting with Light: A Watercolour Introduction
Start Date: Wednesday 3/06/2026 (Weekly)
Time: 10:30am
Duration: 2.5(10 total) hrs
Price: £220.00
Ability: Beginner
Tutor: Rachel Labovitch
Tickets Available: 5
About this course
This four-week course with Rachel Labovitch offers a practical and accessible introduction to watercolour, focusing on the essential relationship between paint, water, and paper. Working step by step, you’ll learn how watercolour is less about applying paint and more about revealing the surface beneath — using transparency, timing, and control to create light and atmosphere.
Across the course, we’ll demystify core techniques such as washes, wet-in-wet, glazing, lifting out and dry brush, exploring when and why to use each. You’ll build confidence through structured exercises before applying these skills to simple subjects including flowers, natural forms, and still life.
Alongside technique, we’ll cover materials — understanding paper types, brush choices, and paint consistency — as well as key processes like layering, colour mixing, stretching paper, and managing drying time.
By the end of the four weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation in watercolour, an understanding of how to control and harness its unpredictability, and the confidence to continue developing your own work.
Week 1 : wash, graded wash, wet in wet, wet on dry, lifting out, scumbling, dry brush, variegated wash, glazing. de mystify all of these terms and work through each technique on a work sheet as well as understanding when and why to use them. Using flowers as a prompt to create patterns / textures using above techniques. Focussing on washes and paint consistency.
Week 2 : Using the wet on dry technique to paint natural forms, using glazes and layering. Mixing colours and using the colour wheel as a prompt for glazes. (more straightforward botanical type painting)
Week 3: Painting still life incorporating a wet in wet background and with a wet on dry subject. how to stretch paper, letting things dry etc.
Week 4 :Painting lost edges and shadows, using colour in shadow, how to charge watercolour into shadows. Creating a painting using hard and soft edges from a natural form still life. Troubleshooting - where to go next and how to improve.
All Materils for this course will be supplied
Book Your Place
Last few places remaining, don't miss out!
Event FAQs
“Taking the time to learn in the inspiring environment of Colne Road Studios was such a treat! The group was welcoming and supportive and Rachel is an extremely talented and generous teacher, sharing her skills and knowledge to give us fresh perspectives and a wealth of useful advice and feedback. I felt my ability and interest in drawing had been revived after many years dormant, learning how to observe as well as how to draw. I would encourage anyone willing to pick up a pencil to have a go, and have already signed up to Rachel’s next course! “CB March 2025
A CPZ is in force from Mon to Sat 8.30 – 6.30pm
Limited paid spaces available in surrounding roads with Ring Go cashless Parking
Max stay 4 hours during operational hours
Holly Road Car park, behind Marks & Spencer TW1 4HF
Mon to Sat – 8am to 6.30pm.
This car park is accessible and free to park in outside of these hours. Max stay 4 hours during operational hours – walking to the Studio approx 9mins
At the moment the courses at Colne Road Studios are designed for adults over the age of 18 . The aim is to create a relaxed environment, provide a bit of an escape and switch off from every day responsibilites. We are not able to accommodate children in our classes, nor do we provide children’s classes at this time.
To secure a course, please book at least 8 days before the listed course start date.
Any course with no bookings 8 days prior to it’s start date will then be removed from the website .
Courses with fewer than 3 participants may be cancelled, with 5 days’ notice given to those who had enrolled.
You will be notified by email if this happens, unless you would like us to text you instead, but please let us know.
A refund for the full course value will then be made.
Please bare with us . This might take 5-10 days to come through.
100 Colne Road Twickenham TW2 6QE. map ref
WHAT3WORDS : location kind.cook.honest
All of our longer courses are exchangeable up until 28 days prior to the start of the course. After this, you are able to change your booking to a different course for a £20 admin fee. Please note that from 14 days prior to the start of the course, your booking is non-refundable and non-exchangeable.
Our refund policy is strict because it enables us to pay ourselves and our tutors a fair wage, and remain accessible as a studio.
Every time we are asked to to accommodate a refund request, we would be forced to lower our staff wages or increase our prices – both of which we really want to avoid. We hope you understand that this is why there are no exemptions to our refund policies.
What if the course is cancelled by Colne Road Studios ?
Courses with fewer than 3 participants may be cancelled, with 5 days’ notice given to those who had enrolled.
You will be notified by email if this happens, unless you would like us to text you instead, but please let us know.
A refund for the full course value will then be made.
Please bare with us . This might take 5-10 days to come through.