Discover how art can change your life

Unleash your creativity as you learn to draw and paint

Picture perfect landscapes

Would you love to paint a landscape that invites the viewer to wander into and around the scene, but feel you just don’t have the ability to do so?

Perhaps your teachers, parents or elders convinced you that you didn’t have the talent to be able to paint even though you loved art? Maybe you enjoyed painting many years ago until life got in the way and now you’d love to take up painting again but don’t know where to start or have the confidence to try?

If the answer to any of those is “yes”, then the "You CAN draw and paint" acrylics landscape painting programme is the one for you! As the name suggests, I am going to show you that you really CAN draw and paint, because I have unlocked that same door to creativity for so many students over the years.

Try the FREE taster package

Incredibly detailed and carefully structured

"Painting landscapes in acrylics’ is You CAN draw and paint's flagship programme.  It is an incredibly detailed, carefully structured programme to take you from beginner or intermediate to a confident and highly competent artist able to depict any landscape and to work on your own painting in situ 'en plein air'. 

In Painting landscapes in acrylics I will guide you step-by-step through a series of 5 carefully constructed modules, each one focusing on a key aspect of landscape painting:

We begin with the module on ways to create the illusion of distance in landscapes: all paintings are an illusion – the illusion of a 3D scene created on a 2D surface – but for landscapes, knowing how to create the illusion of vast distances is vital.

In the 2nd module looks at how we use different types of pathways to lead the viewer into and around the painting, or even block them from being able to enter the scene. Pathways – including everything from little tracks through to roads into towns – are so useful in the composition of your paintings.

After that we explore how to depict water - a vital part of both life and landscapes! The module begins with calm and tranquil water with clear reflections, but as we progress through the 5 lessons the water gets faster, ending up with raging white water.

The 4th module focuses on trees which are the stately aspect of so many landscapes. Trees not only give us strong vertical lines to help with the composition they also help to establish the season, the time of day, and direction of light that is depicted in the painting.

Finally we link them all together in the 5th module entitled “bridges across rivers and canals”. I love bridges – I think it’s because they are one of the few things that are as practical as they are symbolic. Each of the 5 lessons of this module will also include at least 2 of the themes from the first 4 modules so that they become a bridge back and forth to all the learning you have undertaken in the whole programme. 

Create the illusion of distance

Leading the viewer into the scene

Building your expertise and confidence

Each of the 5 thematic modules has 5 lesson packages, all packed with informative insights, tips on techniques, and practical painting exercises. They are all designed to build your expertise and confidence as you discover how to create your own unique works of art.

Each of those 25 lesson packages starts with a discussion about the topic of that lesson’s main painting, its composition techniques, and links to how artists have used particular elements that the lesson practices.

Then we go into a pre-painting workshop where you experiment with drawing and painting whatever is the most complex or important element of that lesson’s main painting. an element that features in the main painting. These workshops are particularly valuable because they allow you to explore and play around with the topic thereby increasing both your technical expertise and your confidence levels before you put it into practice in the main painting.

Finally, we move into the main painting and I start that by giving you a set of pdfs that illustrate how to create the preparatory drawing for the main painting. After that you paint along with me as I take you step by step through how to create this lesson’s main painting.

Enjoy two extra bonuses

As you will see, each module has been carefully structured to set you up for success as you build on skills and elements learned in previous modules and lead you confidently on to future modules in the programme.

However, learning to paint mountains, paths, trees, water, etc are vital to landscape painting, but that’s not all that you will learn on this programme.

There are two huge bonuses for you. 

First I will teach you how to use the rules of perspective and vanishing points - easily!  Once you know those rules you can use them to create the illusion of distance and to give objects and buildings a solid, 3D structure.

Secondly, I will show you how to include figures and animals to add a fantastic story-telling ability into your paintings. You will learn how to draw the figures, give them movement, scale them up or down in size and then paint them into your landscapes.

Setting you up for success

Sample a FREE taste of landscape painting

This taster package is designed to give you a flavour of the format and teaching that you will experience in the main landscape painting programme as well as some invaluable initial practical painting skills to set you up for success.

By enrolling on the free lesson package you will start to discover that you really CAN draw and paint, and get a taste of the fun and amazing learning that you will be enjoying when you sign up to the full programme.

Both this taster package and the flagship programme are aimed at beginners or those returning to painting, and right from the start you will be working alongside me to create your own unique works of art.

To set the scene, I will explain how I was inspired to first of all draw and paint and then to teach those same wonderful skills to others, then I will introduce you to the full programme.

Next we explore the changing ways that landscape has been used by artists over the centuries in their paintings from inventions in mythological depictions to realistic impressions painted in situ ‘en plein air’.

Discover that you really CAN paint

Let me then show you how you can create these fabulous landscapes with just the minimum amount of materials and equipment before you dive into the first of 2 practical painting sessions in this free taster package.

This shows you how to mix a myriad of colours from just 3 primary colours plus black and white as you create your own colour wheel and get an understanding of the way colours contrast or harmonise with one another.

Then you can try out any number of colour mixing and painting exercises before you undertake the main painting lesson of the package.

Work alongside me in step-by-step lessons

Before I serve up the main “dish of the day”, join me for a quick chat about the rules of composition, how that has been simplified over the centuries, and how it is applied in an actual landscape painting – it will also help you take better photographs.

Then grab your paints and brushes again and enjoy the main course of our taster programme as you create an atmospheric landscape painting by working alongside me as I show and explain it to you step-by-step.

Using the same format as we do in the main programme, you will get close-up videos of the painting as it is being created so that you can watch and follow it as you create your own unique work of art.

Take the next step on the road to painting picture perfect landscapes - use the message box below to sign up for the FREE taster package