FRIDAY

Decide What Your Masterpiece Will Be

No paint this week, and that's on purpose. You'll settle on your subject, track down the right reference photograph, and work out your crop, your orientation and your colour palette.

Then you'll make a small sketch and colour study so you know exactly where you are heading. This is also the week to sort your canvas, either bringing your own or booking one to buy at the studio. A blank 36 by 48 inch canvas feels a lot less frightening when you already have a plan.

FRIDAY

Getting Your Drawing Onto a Giant Canvas

Scaling a small sketch up to something this size is a skill of its own, and this week you'll learn several ways to do it. Beverley will show you the grid method, proportional measuring, freehand transfer, and how a projector can help if you want one.

Then you'll establish the major shapes and leave every scrap of detail for later. Getting the composition right now saves you a world of trouble in week eight.

FRIDAY

Big Brushes, Big Colour, No Fiddling

Now the paint comes out and the whole canvas gets covered. You'll work large to small with the biggest brushes you have probably ever held, simplifying shapes and mixing your colours as you go.

There's something wonderfully freeing about painting this loosely. Resist the urge to pick at detail and you'll be amazed how fast the painting takes shape.

FRIDAY

Watch It Start Looking Like Something

This is the week your painting stops being shapes and starts being recognisable. You'll push light against dark, warm against cool, and build real depth into the picture.

Beverley will show you how to create form with colour instead of outlining everything. It's a small shift in thinking that makes an enormous difference to how the finished piece looks.

FRIDAY

Layer It Up and Add Some Texture

Acrylic paint does far more than most people realise, and this week proves it. You'll try glazing, dry brushing, scumbling and layering, and feel how different each one is on the canvas.

Beverley demonstrates as she goes, so you can see the effect before you try it yourself. By the end of the session your painting will have depth and surface interest.

FRIDAY

The Details That Actually Matter

Here come the bits everyone looks forward to: the eyes, the hair, the leaves, the clouds, the fur, the water. Whatever your subject is, this is where it gains its character.

Beverley's rule for the week is worth remembering long after the course finishes. Don't paint every detail you can see, paint the details that matter.

FRIDAY

Turn Up the Drama

A good painting becomes a striking one when the contrast is right. You'll work on shadows, highlights, atmospheric perspective, colour intensity, and exactly where you want the eye to land.

Beverley spends this week with each of you individually, because every painting needs something slightly different. Expect your canvas to look noticeably bolder by the end of it.

FRIDAY

Make It Look Like Yours, Not Like the Photo

Copying a photograph is one thing, painting like an artist is another. This week you're encouraged to loosen up, try a palette knife, push the colour further, or leave whole areas deliberately simple.

Some of you will go bold and some will stay quiet, and both are right. This is the week your painting starts to look like nobody else's.

FRIDAY

Step Back and See the Whole Thing

It's easy to spend an hour staring at one corner, so this week you'll learn to judge the canvas as a whole. Does it need more light, does it need more contrast, and where does your eye go first?

With those answers in hand you'll begin the final refinements. Most people are surprised how much difference a few considered adjustments make.

FRIDAY

Last Strokes, Then Sign It

The final session is for the finishing touches, the last highlights and the tidying up that pulls everything together. Then you sign it, which is easily the best moment of the whole ten weeks.

Take it home to hang, or leave it here at the studio with us. Either way you will have made something far bigger, and far better, than you thought you could.