Our favourite videos

On 16th August 2024, eleven of the UK's top portrait artists joined us at Mall Galleries and spent a day painting from life. We filmed them painting, interviewed them, and talked to the judges. The result is a fascinating 60 minute documentary, full of insights about their processes and painting in general.

Drawing plaster casts is a proven way to improve drawing skills, and has been used to train artists for hundreds of years. In this 5-video series, Patrick Jackson goes through all the steps needed to take a cast drawing to completion, starting from what materials to use through to final rendering.

Increase the depth of your understanding of colour with this exciting new, 4-part course. Charlie Pickard will take you through a series of limited palettes, each designed to isolate and teach a lesson about the three fundamental dimensions of colour. By the end of the course, students will understand how to paint in full colour and design their own palette colour choices intelligently.

Join Lydia Cecil in this 4-part series where she talks about the principles and concepts behind chalk and charcoal, line drawing, mass drawing, and techniques such as measuring anatomy; which are key to understanding how the figure, forms, and light work. Lydia will guide you through drawing a nude figure from start to finish.

In this series, landscape artist Jem Bowden takes us on a journey across some of the most beautiful and evocative locations in the West Country, capturing the essence of each scene in watercolours. From the windswept coast of southern Cornwall to the iconic Glastonbury Tor, Jem demonstrates his plein-air painting techniques, offering insights into how he captures mood, light, texture, and detail.

In this exciting 4-part new course, Lizet Dingemans will be teaching how to paint portraits in acrylics. Lizet will cover the fundamentals of painting in acrylics and explain how it differs from oil painting. She will cover materials, proportions, measurements, values, edges, and colours - everything that you need to create a realistic portrait. Each session is self-contained and painted in real-time so you can paint along if you like. You will paint a complete portrait in each session. In addition, each session will have a particular focus: Week 1 - Basics of how to use acrylics, Week 2 - How to mix realistic skin tones, Week 3 - Painting a monochromatic portrait, and Week 4 - Tiling using patches of colours (no mixing on the canvas allowed!).

Philip de László was one of the pre-eminent portrait artists of his time. Join Lydia Cecil as she paints a copy of one of his portraits. You'll learn about the man, his life, his work and his techniques. We've distilled 14 hours of footage into three 60 minute episodes, exclusively for Raw Umber Gold subscribers.

Capture model Yan Yu in this hour-long 'figure with pan pastel' session with Charlie Pickard.

In this hour-long gold subscriber special, Lydia Cecil will be taking us through a complete (many hours, condensed to one) drawing of model Bethany's striking figure pose in charcoal and chalk.

In this 6 part series you'll learn all you need to know to create an anatomical foundation to your figure drawing and sculpture. You'll start by learning how to think about anatomy in terms of volumes, and then how to create the human body using a series of fundamental forms. Finally, you'll learn about the finer forms of the human body, including muscles. Stuart Elliot is a lecturer at Central St Martins with over 20 years experience in sculpting, drawing and teaching. If you're watching this live then Stuart will be in the chat to answer your questions. The only materials you need for this session are pen and paper.

Alla prima alert! In this session, Patrick will be working with model Daryl for an hour-long alla prima portrait using the Zorn palette, which includes Titanium White, Ivory Black, Cadmium Red and Yellow Ochre. He'll begin with a linear block-in, before shaping the portrait through colour using hue, chroma and value.

In this gold subscriber special, tutor Patrick Byrnes takes us through how to capture model Varosha using the blocking-in method, using graphite pencils.

In this one hour special, Lizet Dingemans will demonstrate how to paint a kettle in a single session. You'll learn how to mix colours and paint a still life, with a focus on reflections and shiny surfaces.

Patrick Byrnes is back for a New Years Eve (eve) special! In this hour-long portrait drawing session, Patrick uses graphite and white chalk on toned paper to capture model Raj, beginning with simple abstract shapes and ending will the fully detailed sketch. This session is for ALL subscribers, and is not a live class.

Ever thought about oil painting or dabbling in still life, but don’t know where to start? In this series, Lizet Dingemans takes us through the whole process of painting a pear in both black/white and colour, in bite-sized, beginner-friendly episodes.

Ever wanted to learn to sculpt? Here's your chance in this online series of bite-sized videos, exclusively for our gold subscribers. Join Sara Myers as she shows you how to take your first head sculpture from start to finish. You'll start by learning about what materials you need, then build an armature, sculpt the head and then finally how to find a kiln to fire it. Sculpting is the perfect way for artists of all disciplines to understand the structure and three dimensional form of the head.

Draw the figure in pencil with focus on line! Join Luca Indraccolo for an hour-long class with model Sabina. Materials: graphite pencils B, H and 2H, putty rubber and pencil eraser on white Fabriano smooth paper in A4.

In this episodic video series for beginners, learn all about the basics of watercolour painting. Watercolourist Jem Bowden demonstrates valuable methods and takes us through simple but effective landscape scenes.

You can learn a tremendous amount by copying other people's works. In this session, Lydia Cecil guides us through a mastercopy of Proust by the Swedish master Anders Zorn. Plus you'll get a mini art-historical lecture, with information about Zorn, his technique and work. It's a must-watch for anybody wanting to improve their drawing.