Top 10 Best Illustration classes, courses, learnings kits and gifts in the UK

Write a short story, journey along a walk, meander through a dream, develop a short thriller or crime story, just bring an idea with you that travels in some way from an A to a B. Starting from point A, whether that’s your front door, the description of your main character, or a seafront view, or... we’ll include hidden secrets, pop up surprises, layers of intrigue, letters of mystery, building pages with hand made ephemera that take us on a circuitous route for your reader to get to your point B. Will that be the end of your walk? the crime solved? or will you leave them wondering aimlessly on a moor not knowing what to do next? We’ll be using drawing, collage, layers of transparent papers, patterns, rubber stamps, letters, postcards, napkins, maps and/or pop ups, along with some written words, (whatever works best with your piece and you’d like to use) to create your interactive book. You can include teasers, wrong turnings in your plot or just go underground to find new worlds in your small book with packed pages. This is a journey to discover your own imagination. Whether you start with a murder mystery plot or a walk around the park, we’ll embroider the stories into exciting hand made artists’ books.

In this workshop you will create a small artists’ book that holds flowerpots filled with our closest family and friends, seeds of hope, words of wisdom, rays of sunshine, positive thoughts and we’ll also sieve all the negativity into the compost bin! As we walk around your life’s garden we’ll discover ways to create dawn light and calm moonlight into our daily routines. We’ll also work out how to make the grey dull rain filled days have a positive twist to them! You will be able to work with collage, drawings, and painting, making envelopes, cut outs and pop ups. You can bring pressed flowers from your own garden, your own bits of ephemera or memories, perhaps some photographs and we’ll create little vegetable and flower patches of happiness and sunshine all captured in a little book that you can keep with you always.

Create beautiful illustrations! Discover the pleasure of capturing the beauty of a plant watercolour and mixed media - All welcome! This workshop will give you the basic skills to create accurate drawings and watercolor paintings, discovering the methods used by real botanical artists! Using watercolour and mixed media we will explore colour mixing, matching and gain understanding of colour theory, as well as taking a dip into Botanical art history and imagery – painting a variety of flowers, leaves and seeds. An intense, relaxing and mindful day of contemplations of natural shapes- suitable for all abilities Join us! All materials included, but, if you have your watercolour set, bring it in to see how to make the most of it. Saturday 13 May 10-4pm £89 All materials included

We are really excited to be working with artist, tutor, animator and live illustrator Aaron Jacob Jones for this special one day workshop Think water colours are just for Sunday painters? Think again! Join us for a day of bold colour and gesture with the great Aaron Jacob Jones. You will explore reductive drawing and painting techniques using pen and watercolour to create lovely, intimate drawings– all working from the life model live in the studio! This is an information packed day-  moving through a range of techniques with emphasis on one to one tuition. With lots of practical demonstrations and tips for handling materials – this is a great class for all levels of ability. Perfect for pushing your life drawing in different directions and building your confidence with colour and wet materials – – Figurative Watercolour One Day Workshop with Aaron Jacob Jones 12 February 2022 10-4.30pm £120 all materials included

In this course, you will learn how to create a modern watercolor portrait. You will learn how to transfer a photo quickly and easily to paper. Create, mix and prepare colors, obtaining different tonalities. Build up layers of paint step by step and develop best working practices. You will also combine different graphite techniques with watercolor to achieve definition on the main features of the face. WHAT IS THE PROJECT? You will paint a watercolor portrait using a photo as your starting point. You can take this home with you. Paper size is A3 (29.7 cm x 42 cm) WHO IS IT FOR? For those interested in trying out watercolor and who are interested in starting portraiture.