EMILY BALL AT SEAWHITE | CONTEMPORARY DRAWING AND PAINTING COURSES |
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SUMMER IN THE GARDEN LIVE ONLINE | book now and enjoy an early bird discount! |
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| Image: garden study at Highdown, photograph by Katie Sollohub |
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“As we move from Spring into Summer I want to be outside, making the most of the longer days and being amongst nature, part of it. My practice involves long stretches working outdoors, noticing the extraordinary seasonal qualities of nature and what it feels like to be there, moving through it. This feeling returns with me to the studio and feeds my work. I cannot think of a better way of spending my time.” ~ Emily
Dear Visitor
In May and June, spring softens into summer, and flowers step into the spotlight, their vivid colours clamouring gently for attention. Petals glow with luminous colour, birdsong rings bright and restless through the air, and deep shadows cast by leafy fronds and the trees’ arbour offer cool, inviting refuge.
To sit in a garden at the height of summer is its own kind of paradise. Whether you tend a garden of your own or seek inspiration in the beauty of others, Summer in the Garden Live Online is a course that celebrates the summer garden in all its abundance.
Taking place Monday 22 – Thursday 25 June and led by Emily Ball & Katie Sollohub, this course will guide you from quick observational studies to resolved, expressive paintings, offering inventive new approaches that encourage fresh ways of working.
The teaching partnership of Emily and Katie is something truly special. For years, they have been leading landscape-based courses together, bringing a shared energy and warmth that students return to time and again. Their teaching is calm, playful, and deeply practical — thoughtfully shaped into accessible, bite-sized guidance designed to help you engage fully, take creative risks, and grow in confidence as you paint. |
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| Image: garden study , Emily Ball |
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Summer in the Garden Live Online can be viewed as a course in two parts:
In the first part of the course, you will spend time making studies in a garden of your choosing, immersing yourself in its atmosphere, structure, and shifting rhythms. To support this process, Emily and Katie will send you a series of short preparatory films designed to help you look closely and respond more deeply to your garden.
For this year’s course, Emily and Katie have recorded an entirely new collection of films, offering fresh material and creative inspiration whether you are joining for the first time or returning to the course.
The second part takes place online, where Emily and Katie will lead live two-hour morning tutorials each day for a week. Filmed at the Seawhite Studio, they will paint alongside you, helping you transform your studies into confident, vibrant paintings.
In this newsletter, we’ll be musing on the enduring allure of the garden as a subject for painting, as well as taking a closer look at the course itself and what it might offer your own practice. But first, a note on an offer we hope you can’t refuse:
Early Bird Discount
Book before 26th May to take advantage of £50 off our Live Online Summer in the Garden course. In practical terms, this means that for £200 you will receive:
- a series of filmed exercises guiding you through the process of making effective, responsive studies
- 4 x 2.5-hour online tutorials, where you’ll work alongside Katie and Emily, exploring how to transform studies into bold, confident paintings
- access to a private Facebook group for course participants, where you can share work, exchange ideas, and find support and inspiration
If you’re ready to secure your place now, click on the link below to head directly to our website, or read on to find out more.
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“this course is so RICH and full of good wisdom and insights!!” ~ Brenda Kelliher |
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| Image: garden study Gill Squires | |
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The garden as a subject and a metaphor for painting |
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From Claude Monet to Henri Matisse, artists have long been drawn to the garden as a source of endless inspiration, revelling in its shifting colours and rich sensory abundance. The garden becomes both a symbol of abundance and a space for quiet dreaming.
Looking closely at your own garden can reveal much about what you might seek in your painting practice — whether that’s a riot of vibrant colour, strong, sharply defined forms, or layered surfaces with shimmering edges and drifting grasses. |
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| Image: Emily & Katie filming the preparatory studies for this year's Summer in the Garden Live Online |
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With Summer in the Garden Live Online, Emily and Katie invite you to approach your creative practice much as you would tend a garden: sowing the seeds of observation, filling your studies with colour and sensation, and responding instinctively, with a sense of curiosity for what might grow and emerge.
A painting — like a garden — is never made in a single gesture. It is shaped through attention, experimentation, and gentle trial and error: shifting this, transplanting that, cutting back, pruning, replanting. In this way, your sketchbooks, studies, and paintings will naturally evolve throughout the course, growing and changing with you. | |
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Summer in the Garden Live OnlinePart One : Preparatory films
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| Image: Emily making studies in her garden |
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To find a quiet, shady spot to sit, watch, listen, wonder and draw is the first part of this course. As you sit and make studies it gives you time to notice the foliage, the shapes of shadows and the dance of colour as your gaze meanders through the spaces.
A month before the live online sessions begin, you will receive a series of short films introducing ways of working. These demonstrations are designed to support you in making a rich body of studies, which will form the foundation for the paintings you develop over the four days in the studio, guided by Emily and Katie. These films offer a wide variety of tools for experimentation, and, perhaps most importantly, a quiet permission to simply enjoy mark-making, colour, texture in the spirit of playfulness without concern for being “right” or “wrong”. |
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Images: garden studies, Emily Ball
Drawing and painting from nature is a process of exploration and discovery, and to help you fully arrive in that space, Katie will guide you through simple mindfulness meditations to ground you in your surroundings before you begin working. The meditation becomes a perfect stepping stone into another way of seeing — a gentle shift into the world you are about to enter for a few hours each day.
For this year’s course, Emily and Katie have recorded an entirely new set of preparatory films, filled with exercises, demonstrations, and practical tips for creating studies that hold marks, memories, and the sensations of being in the garden. Whether or not you have joined before, you can expect a fresh creative spark and new material to explore.
Drawing and painting from nature is a process of exploration and discovery, so alongside observational drawing and painting prompts, you’ll also be playing with words and phrases within your drawings – another ‘way in’ to feeling fully immersed in the garden of your choice. The series of films ends with Katie guiding you through a simple meditation exercise to ground you in your surroundings – a final gift before beginning the important work of transforming your studies int paintings back in your studio.
Click on the image below to view a gshort excerpt from this year's prepatory films: |
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“I found the pre-course videos and exercises helpful and by the time the course started I felt very connected to my garden. I don’t usually spend much time on studies and could really appreciate the value of doing the preparation.”
~ Di Gutteridge
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“I appreciated enormously the weeks of exercises prior to the commencement of the course. I found it both very motivating, since I had no hesitation about what I was going to do each day, but also immensely useful to build up a body of work to work from.”
~ Carinthia Gibbins | |
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“I found the meditation exercises from Katie really enhanced the feeling of being immersed in the garden, and I felt absorbed in what I was seeing in a deeper way as a result. Similarly, the writing exercises were brilliant at letting our minds wander in a different way.” ~ Karen Harrison |
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Summer in the Garden Live Online
Part two – Online tutorials delivered straight to your studio
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“It really is an immersive experience to paint with Emily and Katie and I have come away with a feeling of expansion and that I’ve pushed to my edges a little bit more.” ~ Karen Harrison |
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| Image: Emily & Katie delivering Summer in the Garden Live Online from the Seawhite Studio |
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The second part of the course kicks up a gear, focusing on the shift from studies into paintings, while retaining that sense of dynamic freshness and immediacy. The course includes four morning sessions of live online tuition, each lasting two and a half hours. During these sessions, Emily and Katie will guide you through the process of selecting and working from your studies, showing you how to develop expressive paintings that capture the colour, pattern, mood, and sensory richness of being in the garden. The afternoons are then yours — whether to continue working independently or to rest and simply absorb the previous morning’s discoveries.
“The fact of the course being online I’ve found really suits extremely well ( having done several brilliant online half day courses with Katie): no travel and feeling more supported and enabled to actually inhabit my studio space !!” ~ Judith Bibby
Each session will be recorded, with links sent to all students. Recordings remain available for 30 days after the final session, giving you ample time to revisit demonstrations, review key moments, and absorb every last detail of insight and inspiration. |
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| “I loved working alongside you in my own studio. It felt very comfortable and natural. It was great to be able to look over to see what you were up to . Going forward I intend to rewatch the videos , hoping that I will pick up even more as I go.” ~ Liz Meier
Image: garden painting, Liz Meier @liz_meier_art
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“The highlight for me I think was the feeling of being in an encouraging safe space where what was important was experimenting rather than having the perfect painting. Being encouraged to challenge my ideas about what is exciting and extraordinary and push further - it’s the journey that is important….” ~ Pauline Passmore |
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| Image: garden study, Karen Harrison |
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Alongside the online Zoom sessions, you will have the opportunity to connect with a community of like-minded artists through the Summer in the Garden Facebook group, where ideas, images, and work can be shared throughout the course. In addition, students will be invited to contribute to a dedicated online gallery on the website, allowing everyone to follow the progress and creative energy of the course, whether or not they use Facebook. Many participants find this shared sense of connection, encouragement, and inspiration one of the most rewarding aspects of the experience. Click on the button below to see last year’s prolific output.
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| Image: home studio set up with garden painting and studies, Barbara Holt @barbara1holt
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To book your place, simply click the button below. We’d love you to join us for Summer in the Garden and share in this immersive season of making, noticing, and painting. | |
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And just a reminder — if you book before 26th May, you’ll receive £50 off the course fee, bringing the total to £200. A limited-time offer for early birds.
"I’ve attended many courses in the past and this is the first time I’ve experienced this kind of teaching. I loved the mix of mindfulness, slowing down and practical methods." ~ Neil Turner
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| Image: Studies made by Emily Ball in her Garden |
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