Drawing and Painting in a Botanical Style

Over 10 three-hour sessions, on Monday mornings, this course provides an insight into the beautiful process of botanical drawing and painting.

This course aims to give an insight into the whole process from beginning to end of achieving the skills required to produce a finished painting.

You will have worksheets for future reference and by the end of the course will have gained experience working with pencil and watercolours. You will develop your observational drawing skills and learn how to achieve light, tone and texture.

No experience is required and those with experience will be able to further their practice and develop new skills.

This course is designed to help you gain confidence in drawing and painting skills. Tutor Georgia will provide many natural history subjects which will be vital in learning how to use our pencils in texture studies. This will follow the introduction to pencils and basic skills including tonal studies. Step by step instruction will be provided by encouraging the use of worksheets to enable the learner to feel at ease with the sometimes-daunting task of drawing a subject.

We will break down the process which will therefore take away any pressure to produce ‘perfect’ work straight away and the tutor will demonstrate at different levels and whenever asked to.

The steps begin with the early stages of learning which tools are suitable to each individual and the application of these to produce drawings and studies of particular subjects. We will look at tonal values, shape, form and textures which can then be achieved with watercolours. Firstly, you will gain confidence in using watercolours by learning the washes and the different ways to apply it. Colour studies will also be covered, as well as developing a connection between the pencil and the paint brush.

Worksheets are encouraged as a learning tool and will have all the background knowledge to help in the process towards a final piece. Personal styles will be encouraged as we all develop in our own way. All steps will be covered at your own pace.

Tutor Georgia Danver’s botanical journey began through her love of art and nature. She gained a Diploma from Rosie Martin at the Eden Project and has exhibited in London with Society of Botanical Artists for many years. Georgia has also exhibited solo and within a group winning medals at various RHS shows, and her most recent solo show was at The Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea. Her passion is to enlarge subjects and to showcase the ‘unseen’ beauty of the natural world.

This course will run on Monday mornings, 10am – 1pm, for 10 sessions. The first session will be on Monday 20 January and the final session will be on Monday 24 March 2025.

All materials will be provided.

Participants must be aged 18+.

Please ensure that you agree to our updated Terms & Conditions before booking as courses/workshops are non-refundable in some circumstances.

We aim to make all our sessions as accessible as possible and carers/PAs are very welcome – just remember to book their free place when you book your session. If you'd like to talk to us in advance of booking or attending your sessions to discuss your access needs, our Box Office team is here to help! Email arts-centre@le.ac.uk, pop in or call 0116 252 2455, open 7 days a week.

We have four blue badge parking spaces outside Attenborough Arts Centre, plus double yellow line roadside parking very close to the building for blue badge holders for up to three hours if our parking spaces are occupied.

Free parking for all customers is available after 5pm on weekdays and all day at weekends in the University of Leicester car park next door to Attenborough Arts Centre on Lancaster Road. The closest public car park for parking at all other times is Victoria Park, 5-10 minutes walk from us (near De Montfort Hall).