Leisure Painter

Leisure Painter - the number one learn-to-paint magazine featuring practical painting and drawing features from top art tutors. Includes step-by-step tuition and easy-to-follow advice on how to draw and paint.

Editorial

Leisure Painter

Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration • Quentin Blake opens of the world's largest space for illustration

Spotlight on art • A round-up of events and ideas to enjoy live and online

Ink in motion • Nick Stewart shows you how to mix three primary fountain pen ink colours plus a black ink to make secondary and tertiary colours to create a vivid and graphic painting of a European goldfinch

Editing for focus • In the tangled beauty of the woods, striking compositions rarely reveal themselves at first glance. Learn how to uncover order within the chaos - searching for focal points, guiding the eye through layers of texture and light, and shaping a scene through careful observation and instinct in this project from Jenny Aitken

Using the white of the paper • Use the white of your paper to add impact to your drawings and paintings with Tony Underhill

Simplify & paint figures & loosely expressively! • Adding figures to a scene will create movement, a sense of scale and place regardless of location. Learn more in this tutorial from new contributor Ashley Raddon

Breaking the rules outdoors • Haidee-Jo Summers on plein-air painting in oils

Drawing as a way of seeing • For more than four decades, artist James Hobbs has filled sketchbooks with observations of city streets, construction sites, train journeys and everyday life. In this interview, he discusses drawing as a daily practice, the value of imperfect sketches, and why documenting the world around him matters more than creating polished images

Q&A Taking my pencils en plein air • Helen Carter focusses on the planning, preparation and practicalities for making the most of drawing with coloured pencils en plein air

Drawing your journey • By the time artists Ali Hargreaves and Liz Chaderton found themselves in Asia simultaneously - sketchbooks tucked into rucksacks as they visited sons in Nepal and Thailand - they had already learned something important: travel sketching isn't about making perfect drawings. It's about paying attention

Art clubs • Over to you for the latest news on your club exhibitions and activities

Art club challenge • In celebration of the enjoyment (and challenges!) that plein-air painting provides us with, we asked you to share your ‘plein-air’ artwork

PAINTERS ONLINE X SOPHIE ALLPORT IN BLOOM BOTANICAL ART CHALLENGE • We're thrilled to share more about the artistic talents of Anna Strapue, the winner of this challenge

ART BOOKS

THE ART WORLD • NEWS, INFORMATION AND ONLINE EVENTS IN THE ART WORLD

Dear Diary • Join us as we sneak a peak into the diary of an artist. Robert E Wells

The art of astonishment Hannah Lipsey's hyperreal worlds in coloured pencil • With their mirror-like reflections, gleaming metallic surfaces and extraordinary precision, Hannah Lipsey's coloured pencil drawings stop viewers in their tracks. In this interview, she discusses her fascination with hyperrealism, the challenge of capturing light, and why coloured pencil remains the perfect medium for creating work that sparks wonder

Honeyed flow Painting with M. Graham Watercolours • Discover the flowing possibilities of M. Graham & Co. Artists’ Watercolours as Catherine Beale explores their honey-based pigments through expressive wet-in-wet techniques, colour experiments and a vibrant step-by-step bumblebee painting project

Sternstein to the Danube • John Owen shares his study of the Rodl river, exploring his multitude of sketches and his growing familiarity with...