Plein Air Painting Workshop: Sketching the Landscape

New workshop for 2026!

Join us for fun Plein Air painting workshops in 2026 at Tegg's Nose Country Park. In each workshop, experienced professional painters, Christopher Clements and Kieran Ingram, will help you capture a different aspect of landscape painting.

Sketching is thinking on paper, it can be used to make drawings in their own right, preparation for plein air painting or as first hand reference for studio paintings. Whatever you want to get out of your sketching, this workshop will get you looking at, and thinking about the landscape in front of you constructively and creatively.

We’ll cover:

• analysing the landscape to make better decisions when you’re painting
• different approaches to sketching
• creative use of materials
• experimenting with ideas

A well observed preliminary sketch boosts the chances of a painting working out as you want it to. It will help you think through key decisions before you put brush to canvas. A sketch can help you experiment and analyse key things like framing, the point of focus and big tonal relationships. This not only saves a lot of time, the sketches themselves often turn out to be dynamic pieces of art in their own right.

In this workshop you’ll try out different approaches to sketching, including thumbnail drawings, mass and line drawing as well as note taking to record key observations. You can use whatever media you’re comfortable with as you explore how best to use it to record your impression of the landscape.

This workshop is a great foundation for all the workshops we’re running this year as the techniques studied on this one will be used throughout the series.

All the Plein Air workshops we’re running this summer are based on the Tonalist approach which focuses on interpretation of the light & dark tones of the landscape, while simplifying the colours. The approach will help you to make sense of what you see. You’ll be able to organise it into a well-structured painting, evoking the simple beauty of your environment.

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned painter, these workshops are perfect for anyone looking to improve their Plein Air painting skills. It’s a fantastic opportunity to get out of the studio and unleash your creativity in the great outdoors.

Booking and payment in advance is essential. Workshop Price £85, reserve your place with a £20 deposit on Eventbrite, the remainder will be invoiced before the course.