There will be a very brief introduction to the various makes of coloured pencil and suitable paper types.

Students will learn the following skills:
Choosing an image (your own or one provided by the tutor, as you wish) or developing a working sketch
Selecting, masking or cropping the image
Minimal pencil guidelines and transfer of image
Mark making in ink with artist examples (Hockney, Ravilious, Piper etc.)
Layering and blending coloured pencil
Embossing, lifting and texturing
Where to start on your chosen image
Creating foreground and distance effectively
Balancing strength and delicacy
Shadows and highlights
Getting the balance of media right
Finishing touches – edges, smooth finishes, strengthening and softening

Teaching will be a mixture of demonstrations by the tutor and individual help. There will be a general feedback on all the work at the end of the course.

Artist quality coloured pencils (preferably non-watercolour, although these can be used dry) - Faber Castell Polychromos, Derwent Artist or Procolour, Caran D’Ache Pablo or similar
Paper of your choice - Bristol Board such as Strathmore Series 300 smooth or Fabriano 5 paper if you like a slight texture. (Please note that you will only need a small size (A4) as coloured pencil is decidedly slow art!)
An HB pencil
A good pencil sharpener with a very sharp blade
Erasers - putty and plastic
Faber Castell Pitt artist pens (SX, S, F, M) or Staedtler pigment liner pens (0.5, 0.3, 0.1 and ultra fine 0.05)
A sketch pad or cartridge paper for preliminary drawings
Small sheet of tracing paper
Masking tape/Ruler/Scalpel
Feel free to bring your own shoreline photos, images or sketches. The tutor will also provide some inspiring seasonal images.
NB It is always preferable to work on landscape that you have walked yourself and observed in real life so that you have also absorbed the mood.
A selection of books will be available for reference on artists, coloured pencil techniques, mark making in ink and wildflowers.

Assorted papers: Fabriano hot pressed watercolour paper, Strathmore Bristol Board Series 300 (smooth and vellum), coloured pencil specific papers (mostly 40p – £1 per sheet)

Helen Hanson SBA

Helen Hanson FSBA

Helen Hanson has always been interested in creating a “window on the wild”. After teaching Languages for 17 years, she reinvented herself as an artist and spent many years as a professional printmaker, exhibiting her landscape etchings throughout Britain. She was a member of Greenwich Printmakers for 23 years and a founder member of South Bank Printmakers. She was a Council member of the Society of Women Artists and has been in the Society of Botanical Artists for many years, winning the President’s Award for her printmaking.

After years spent turning the press Helen decided to move into new territory, experimenting with landscape and botanical painting. A chance mixing of ink with coloured pencil led her into a new way of integrating the two media which she has firmly established as her own. She now teaches others, and has just published her first book on the subject, Landscape in Ink and Coloured Pencil from Crowood Press.

www.helenhanson.co.uk