Learn to see like a painter.
Small in-person classes in a sunlit Paddington studio, taught by Mara Ellis. Short lessons, real momentum, and a habit you keep long after the term ends.
Watercolour rewards the relaxed hand.
Most beginners are taught to control the medium, and watercolour punishes control. The pigment wants to move, so the courses teach decisions rather than grip — how much water, which pigment, where the light lives — and let the medium do the rest.
Three habits every course is built on
The method is the same whether it is your first class or your fourth term.
Short exercises, real momentum
Nothing over twenty minutes. You watch one idea, paint one page, and the brush is wet before the hesitation arrives.
Critique that actually looks
Pages come back marked up in the room — what worked, what drowned, and the one thing to try next.
Sketchbook first, frame later
The sketchbook is the gym, not the gallery. Fill pages without ceremony and the frameable ones arrive on their own.
What the room looks like on a Tuesday
Photographed on an ordinary Tuesday, not a styled one.
One jar, a few brushes
The whole materials list fits in a jar. Nothing is taught that needs a shopping trip.
The wash
Watercolour is the only medium that keeps painting after you lift the brush. Learning to let it is most of the course.
The jacaranda
In bloom for a few weeks every spring, and the reason the November classes run a little late.
What changes after a few weeks of pages
“I came in sure I couldn’t draw, and nobody asked me to. The short exercises are sneaky — you are improving before you notice you are practising.”
“The critique on Landscapes is worth the term fee on its own. Mara found the same mistake in three of my pages and fixed all of them with one sentence.”
“I have filled four sketchbooks since the Habit course. My phone gallery used to be screenshots; now it is pages.”
Your first class is a short drive from the CBD.
New terms start through the year — ask what has a seat left.