Focus · Big Shapes
Never picked up a brush
Start with Beddgelert Bridge — free, and built for absolute beginners.
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Mike Mills · Watercolour · Cardiff
Every painting is built in four honest stages.
No shortcuts, no filters. Big shapes first. Then watercolour, then tone, then detail. Scrub the rail and watch Beddgelert Bridge come together exactly the way I teach it.
The artist
I didn't start with talent. I started with a method.
Twenty years ago I couldn't draw a straight line. What changed wasn't talent — it was breaking every painting down into four repeatable stages, in the same order, every time.
“If you can hold a brush and follow four stages in order, you can paint this. I’ve watched it work on people who told me they had no artistic ability at all.”
— Mike MillsThat system is the whole of what I teach now. Not tricks, not shortcuts — just the sequence that actually works, taught the same way on a bridge in Wales as it is on a street in New York.
Read more about me →Start your creative journey
Wherever you're starting from, there's a next stage for you.
Focus · All four stages
Know the basics, want structure
The Core Skills bundles isolate one stage at a time until it's automatic.
See Core Skills →Focus · Tone & Detail
Ready for a full painting
Location courses take you start to finish on a real, complete scene.
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Featured course
Polperro Saxon Bridge
£49 · 12 lessons · all four stages
A Cornish harbour scene built the long way round: rough stone shapes first, then a full watercolour wash, then the tone work that gives the bridge its weight, then the detail that makes the harbour feel lived-in.
Enrol nowTips & techniques
Latest from the studio
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Mixing greens that don't look like a golf course
Three pigments, one ratio, and the mistake almost every beginner makes with foliage.
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When to stop — the hardest brushstroke there is
Why the detail stage ruins more paintings than any other, and how to know you're done.
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A starting kit for Tombow tone work
The four pens I actually use for the tone & shade stage, and why the rest can wait.