EMILY BALL AT SEAWHITE | CONTEMPORARY DRAWING AND PAINTING COURSES |
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SUMMER INSPIRATION | Courses to Help You Celebrate Summer Through Paint |
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| Images: Colour & Light in the Landscape, A Fistfulof Flowers (Emily Ball/KatieSollohub) |
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Dear Visitor Whilst our in-person courses are taking a summer pause, we are making the most of the season—spending time in our gardens, walking through the landscape and enjoying the inspiration that surrounds us.
In this newsletter, we’re sharing four courses designed to help you explore the colours, light and atmosphere of summer, and discover new ways of translating your experiences into paint. |
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| Summer in the Garden
Pre-recorded course
Inspired by our recent Live Online course, Summer in the Garden guides you through the process of transforming garden studies into expressive studio paintings.
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| Colour and Light in the Landscape Part One: Out in the Landscape
Pre-recorded course A journey into observing and gathering from the landscape. Learn ways to make studies that capture the colours, light and atmosphere of a place, creating rich material to inspire your paintings. |
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| Colour and Light in the Landscape Part Two: Development into Paintings
Live Online course (with recordings available) 5-7 August 2026
The companion course to Part One, exploring how to transform your landscape studies into vibrant, personal paintings in the studio. |
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Together, the two Colour and Light courses offer a complete creative process — from experiencing the landscape, to developing paintings that convey a personal sense of place. |
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| A Fistful of Flowers
Pre-recorded course
An intimate exploration of painting flowers, encouraging you to discover not only their visual qualities, but also the memories, emotions and connections they hold. |
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We hope these courses inspire you to make the most of the richness of summer and combine a love of nature with a passion for expressing that connection through paint. |
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| If you decide to step away from your summer garden and want to enjoy the excitement of summer in the city, we also have details about a wonderful workshop led by Eve Stuart entitled ‘Dress up and Draw’ that is taking place in London at the end of the month. |
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Read onto find out more, or click on one of the buttons below to head to our website and book a place |
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Summer in the Garden
A Pre-Recorded course
with Emily Ball and Katie Sollohub
£150 |
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| Image: Summer in the Garden (Emily Ball) |
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"Summer in the Garden is a wonderful excuse to spend time in your garden. To sit in reverie. To celebrate the beauty and the light, the colour and the textures. Your paintings become an abundant new garden that nourishes yet more work." ~ Emily |
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What do you love about being in your garden? Is it the treasured plants, sunlit borders bursting with colour, or the cool, shady spaces where you can sit and simply look? Perhaps it's the wilder corners, where nature is free to spread and tumble, alive with the hum of insects and offering a haven for birds and small creatures.
Whatever draws you to your garden, Summer in the Garden invites you to spend time there, observing, making studies and celebrating it through paint. Katie and Emily love teaching this course, and their warmth, encouragement and enthusiasm shines through every film. |
| | Image: Summer in the Garden (Emily Ball) |
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They will encourage you to make paintings that grow from the experience of being in your garden. Just as you curate and tend a garden, you'll learn to curate your paintings: to look, arrange, improvise and organise; to prune, propagate and nurture ideas until they flourish. Rather than copying the view, you'll create paintings that are expressive, personal and full of life. |
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Images - Studies, Summer in the Garden, Emily Ball
This course is perfect for you if: - you'd like your work to become more expressive and move beyond simply copying what you see.
- you love the physicality of paint and the luminosity and richness of colour.
- you'd like your marks and gestures to have more movement, depth and meaning.
- you'd like greater confidence in your decision-making and to trust your intuition.
- you want to expand your practice and introduce fresh ideas into your work.
The course begins with a series of short films, made in Emily's garden earlier this year, in which Emily and Katie demonstrate a range of ways to make studies. You'll be encouraged to spend time drawing directly from observation, building a rich collection of studies before moving onto painting. We recommend allowing at least two weeks for this stage, although you are free to work at your own pace. |
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| Image: Summer in the Garden (Emily Ball) |
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When you're ready, you'll move on to the second set of films, where Emily and Katie demonstrate how to transform those studies into a series of paintings in the studio. These films were recorded during the live online course, filmed in Emily's studio in June 2026.
Working in both oils and acrylics, on canvas and paper, the course includes practical demonstrations covering: - exploring colour
- applying paint with confidence
- selecting and editing from your studies
- understanding the value of making studies from studies
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| Image: Summer in the Garden (Emily Ball) |
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Each stage is broken down into manageable exercises with clear demonstrations, making the process accessible and easy to revisit. While the methods are structured and repeatable, they leave plenty of room for each person's work to develop in its own individual way, reflecting their unique ambitions, interests and way of seeing.
Throughout the course you'll be encouraged to develop three or four paintings at the same time, allowing each piece to inform the next and giving yourself the space to compare, reflect and make confident decisions. |
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| Image: Summer in the Garden (Emily Ball) |
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Once you've purchased the course, it's yours to keep and revisit whenever you wish. The ideas and processes extend far beyond the course, offering approaches you can return to throughout the changing seasons, whether you're painting your own garden or finding inspiration elsewhere.
To find out more about the course and to book your place, click on the biutton below: | |
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Colour and Light in the Landscape - from studies into paintings
A way of seeing and working |
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Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter each have their own palette of colours, each with their own mood. The changing light gives colour and form to everything it touches. It chases across expanses of open fields magnifying every rut and furrow. It falls on canopies of trees and filters and seeps into the spaces in between. It can bathe everything with a golden light, soft and melting, or be dazzling, cold and piercing. With light comes shadows too. These stretch out their fingertips exploring every surface they touch. They fold, bend and seep over forms; hiding and revealing as they move. Nothing is constant, everything is changing and alive. |
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| Image Study, Frances Knight |
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Colour needs light. Once the colour is switched on then it is has its own magical and surprising language, it has a seductive quality all of its own. Layering colours can create a shimmer and luminosity that is palpable.
To convey the physical experience of being in the landscape is challenging and enticing. You can endeavour to capture what you see but also so much more; bird song, a warm breeze on your skin, the buzz of insects and the verdant space surrounding you. Perhaps the feeling of being grounded and held by the landscape as it rolls and folds, or just the scent of wild flowers at your feet, or the contrast of the wildness and the tamed. Who knows what will be the inspiration for your paintings? The reason for doing the paintings is to find out. |
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| Image: Hot Hill ,Emily Ball |
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Colour and Light in the Landscape is a two part course that will provide you with exciting tools and exercises to help you capture these extraordinary qualities in the landscape. Firstly making colour studies out in your chosen landscape and then secondly back in the studio using the studies to develop paintings as you work alongside Emily and Katie. |
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Colour and Light in the Landscape - from studies into paintings
Part one: Out in the Landscape
Pre-recorded course with Emily Ball & Katie Sollohub £50 |
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| Image: Colour & Light in the Landscape, Emily Ball/KatieSollohub |
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Part One begins with a series of short films introducing the carefully selected, minimal kit that you'll take with you into the landscape of your choice. This paired back, delicious kit of materials enables a richness to evolve on the paper; playful accidents that can be seized and transformed into the subject. These discoveries become the starting point for your paintings.
Before you begin, Katie leads a gentle meditation to help you slow down and become present in the landscape. Alongside this, she introduces the use of words as another way of noticing, selecting and deepening your response to what you experience. |
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| Image: Colour & Light in the Landscape, Emily Ball/KatieSollohub |
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Through demonstrations and carefully structured exercises, Emily and Katie will invite you to explore complementary colours; playfully arranging them to clash and change the light and mood of your work. The intention is to have you push the materials: to rub out; to layer; to change, search and respond as each study develops. |
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| Image: Colour & Light in the Landscape, Emily Ball/KatieSollohub |
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For more information and to book a place click on the button below:
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Colour and Light in the Landscape - from studies into paintings
Part Two: Development into Paintings
Live online course with Emily Ball & Katie Sollohub
5 – 7 August 2026 (Wed – Fri) 10.30am – 12.30pm each day
£180 |
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| Image: Colour & Light in the Landscape, student's work (Emily Ball/KatieSollohub) |
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Having spent time immersed in the landscape and created your collection of studies, Part Two is where those observations begin to grow into paintings.
You can join Emily and Katie live online, working alongside them as they demonstrate their process, or watch the edited recordings at your own pace. Using your studies as inspiration, they will guide you through the journey of translating the colour, light and feeling of the landscape into a series of paintings. |
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| Image: Colour & Light in the Landscape, Netta Jennison ( Emily Ball/KatieSollohub) |
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Whether you work in oils or acrylics, and whether your approach is to brush, pool, blot, layer or polish the paint, Emily and Katie will demonstrate a variety of ways to explore the richness and possibilities of your materials. Demonstrations include working on both canvas and paper, showing how different surfaces and approaches can influence the development of your paintings.
Before beginning this part of the course, you will need your studies displayed in your studio, allowing them to remain a constant source of inspiration and reference as your paintings evolve. |
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| Image: Colour & Light in the Landscape, Painting by Netta Jennison |
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Each stage is broken down into manageable exercises with clear demonstrations, giving you a supportive framework while leaving space for your own decisions and discoveries. Throughout the course, you are encouraged to develop three or four paintings alongside each other. This allows you to compare, reflect and see how ideas emerge, with each painting informing and inspiring the next. |
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| Image: Colour & Light in the Landscape, Frances Knight (Emily Ball/KatieSollohub) |
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For more information and to book a place click on the button below:
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A fistful of Flowers
Pre-Recorded Course with Emily Ball
£125 |
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| Image: A Fistful of Flowers, Emily Ball |
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Launched last month, A Fistful of Flowers offers a thoughtful and personal exploration of painting flowers, inviting you to develop a deeper connection with your subject. The course explores how to capture not only the qualities of the flowers you choose, but also the memories, experiences and emotions that they evoke. It is an intimate and in-depth look at an endlessly inspiring subject. |
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For more information and to book a place click on the button below:
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| Image: Dress up and Draw, Eve Stuart |
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"A scandalous scarlet lipstick? Maybe a frilly flamboyant skirt or big chunky patent boots. Come and dress up and draw with me!" ~ Eve Stuart
Join final-year Costume Design student Eve Stuart for a playful, hands-on workshop exploring drawing and collage through costume, dress-up and storytelling.
Taking place from 2.00–5.00pm on 29 July at Sprout Arts Gallery, Tooting, this imaginative workshop invites participants to discover how clothing, fabric and accessories can inspire expressive drawing and character creation.
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| Image: Dress up and Draw, Eve Stuart |
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Working from life, participants will take turns dressing and drawing one another using an eclectic collection of patterned fabrics, unusual accessories and playful costume combinations. Eve will provide a wonderful selection of clothing, fabrics and props, alongside drawing packs containing paper, glue sticks and tape. Participants are also encouraged to bring along their own favourite clothing or accessories to share with the group. |
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| Image: Dress up and Draw, Eve Stuart |
| "When responding from life, it's important not to separate yourself from what you are describing. We'll take turns dressing and drawing each other in fun, playful outfits using patterned fabrics and eccentric accessories. I'll be bringing a big box of fabrics, clothing and accessories for everyone to explore." ~ Eve |
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Drawing from life is central to Eve's creative practice as a costume designer. Modelling and dressing up help her explore the physicality of a character, revealing how clothing shapes movement, personality and narrative. This workshop invites participants to experience that same process through observation, experimentation and play. |
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| Image: Dress up and Draw, Eve Stuart |
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The session begins with quick observational sketches, focusing on fabrics, textures and objects before progressing to larger, more expressive drawings. Participants will also create collage papers that are layered into their artwork, building figures through mark-making, fabric-inspired textures and imaginative costume design.
Everyone will leave with their own drawing materials and a collection of artwork created during the workshop.
For more information and to book your place please click on the button below:
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