Tips & Techniques

Small lessons, real skills.

Free tutorials on watercolour, urban sketching, and pen & ink, each one focused on a specific skill or stage of the painting process. Dip in wherever you want to improve, or take a full course to follow the method from start to finish.

Tudor manor house with detailed timber framing and a textured stone wall, a hand holding a fine-liner pen resting on the page

Adding Detail with Fine Liners

Learn how to finish a sketch with fine liners: choose what to draw, add tone and texture with hatching, and use negative space for definition.

Loose watercolour washes over ink linework of a canal bridge with narrowboats moored beside it

Adding Watercolour to the Big Shapes Outline

How to add watercolour to a big shapes outline: choose a tight palette, lay broad non-literal washes, let colours blend, and stop earlier than you think.

Brick bridge arch with a dark tonal reflection in the water below, a hand holding a brush pen resting on the page

Adding Tone & Depth with Brush Pens

Add depth to a watercolour sketch with six grey Tombow brush pens: how to apply tone, build it in layers and blend from dark to light.

Cluster of harbour cottages painted in mixed warm hues of orange, green, pink and cream

Mixing Watercolours Using a Limited Palette

How to mix watercolours with a limited palette: pick two complementary colours, map every mix on a simple eight-box grid, and get neutral greys that harmonise.

Pure ink linework of a village street with timber-framed cottages, reduced to structural shapes, a hand holding a pencil resting on the page

How to Simplify a Scene Into Big Shapes

Squint at a scene, keep only what survives, and draw that first. A simple method for finding the big shapes before any watercolour or detail.

Core Skills Bundles

Want to practise one skill in depth?

Short, focused exercise sets. Not a full painting, just the specific technique worth mastering on its own. More bundles are on the way; browse the full Core Skills collection →

Close sketchbook study of terracotta roof tiles, moss, a gutter and a brick chimney, with a hand inking the tiles with a black fine-liner

£8

Roofs & Tiles

Six focused exercises covering front elevations, perspective, tile texture, chimneys, thatched roofs, and exaggerated perspective.

6 Videos · Pen & Ink · Urban Sketching

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Close pen sketch of weathered brick wall and boulders shaded with hatching, cross-hatching and stippling, with a hand hatching a brick with a black fine-liner

£8

Bricks & Stonework

Five focused exercises covering weathered walls, cracked slabs, and scattered pebbles, reading real stone and pavement texture with confidence.

5 Videos · Pen & Ink · Urban Sketching

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A sketchbook page of pen technique exercises: a line-weight ladder, hatching, cross-hatching, stippling and a shaded pebble, with a hand finishing the pebble with a black fine-liner

£8

Essential Pen & Line Techniques

Learn what each pen is for and how to make a line do a job: fine liner sizes, hatching, and taking a line for a walk. Seven focused video exercises with Mike Mills.

7 Videos · Fine Liners · Pen & Ink

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Free Course

Ready to paint a complete scene?

The free Beddgelert Bridge course opens soon. Follow the four-stage process from first sketch to finished painting.

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No card required · Free forever · Opening soon