# Will Kemp Art School: painting tutorials, courses, tips \& techniques

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## Pages
- [test](https://willkempartschool.com/test/)
- [Student Success Stories – Floral Still Life](https://willkempartschool.com/student-success-stories-floral-still-life/)
- [Student Success \- Pink Peony](https://willkempartschool.com/student-success-pink-peony/)
- [Terms and Conditions](https://willkempartschool.com/terms-of-service/)
- [Oil Painting for Beginners](https://willkempartschool.com/oil-painting/)

## Posts
- [​How to Begin Painting \(Without Wasting Your Time or Money\)](https://willkempartschool.com/beginning-painting-how-to/)
- [A Few Kitchen Countertop Water Mixable Oil Sketches from the Week](https://willkempartschool.com/a-few-kitchen-countertop-water-mixable-oil-sketches-from-the-week/)
- [Student Success for December, January \& February 2026 \(Over 100\+ artworks\!\)](https://willkempartschool.com/student-success-for-december-january-february-2026/)
- [How to Loosen up Your Paintings \(structure vs spontaneity\)](https://willkempartschool.com/how-to-loosen-up-your-painting/)
- [I Should Have Bought This Years Ago: Art Studio Storage Ideas](https://willkempartschool.com/i-should-have-bought-this-years-ago/)

## Products
- [Floral Still Life Acrylic Painting for Beginners](https://willkempartschool.com/product/floral-still-life-acrylic-painting-for-beginners/): \<div style="padding: 55\.83% 0 0 0; position: relative;"\>\<iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;" title="Floral Still Life Acrylic Painting for Beginners \- Will Kemp Art School" src="https://player\.vimeo\.com/video/356048819?h=b31b70da4d\&title=0\&byline=0\&portrait=0\&badge=0\&autopause=0\&player\_id=0\&app\_id=58479" frameborder="0"\>\</iframe\>\</div\>
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\<h4 style="text\-align: center;"\>\(Scroll down \<b\>↓\</b\> to Add to Cart\)\</h4\>
Inspiration for a painting often strikes when walking around your garden\.

Inspiration often ends when the mass of leaves and flowers you've picked are now strewn across your kitchen table, trying to pass themselves off as a still\-life\!

When you put paint to canvas, the whole thing looks unrealistic and a little dated\. Is it the leaves? Is it the vase? Is the composition wrong? Why don’t the petals appear translucent?

Trying to transfer that feeling of simplicity and light into a studio still life can become very frustrating\.

Greens that appeared bright outside suddenly become more muted inside, and if you try to paint them as brightly as you observed in the garden, they can appear fake\.

Flower heads that appeared really white and flat outside now need added contrast to make them seem three\-dimensional on the canvas\.

This course will guide you through the process of creating an Impressionistic floral still\-life painting in acrylics, recreating nature's colour palettes from start to finish\.

Over 3 hours of tuition, you’ll learn how to simplify and separate tonal values into areas of light and shadow, how to use warm and cool colours effectively and how to mix and balance naturalistic greens, creating a subtle acrylic palette and a realistic sense of sunlight hitting the leaves \& petals\.

 
- [How to Paint a Peony \- Still Life Painting Course](https://willkempartschool.com/product/how-to-paint-a-peony-still-life-painting-course/): \<div style="padding: 56\.25% 0 0 0; position: relative;"\>\<iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;" title="How to Paint a Peony" src="https://player\.vimeo\.com/video/958934961?badge=0\&autopause=0\&player\_id=0\&app\_id=58479" frameborder="0"\>\</iframe\>\</div\>
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\<h4 style="text\-align: center;"\>\(Scroll down \<b\>↓\</b\> to Add to Cart\)\</h4\>
Welcome to 'How to Paint a Peony'\.

In this course, I’m excited to guide you through creating the delicate details of a peony in an impressionist style\.

You might feel intimidated by the complexity of painting peonies, struggle with basic drawing techniques, lack confidence in your colour\-mixing skills, or are unsure of how to start\.

Don't worry; I've got you covered\!
\<h3\>Course Outline\</h3\>
\<strong\>Introduction to Tools \& Materials\</strong\>

Gathering Materials: Understanding what supplies are needed \(brushes, paints, canvases, etc\.\) What are the best colours to use? And which brushes? I go through all the tools and materials I use for the painting\.

\<strong\>Prep Studies\</strong\>
Sketching Basics: How to draw a basic peony outline\. Getting to know our subject by creating small thumbnail sketches and a 'notan' study\.

\<strong\>Poster Study
\</strong\>Do you feel like you're always overworking your painting or fiddling with the details? With the poster study, you can get expressive and try to create the concept of the painting in a few brushstrokes\!

\<strong\>Lesson 1: Drawing\</strong\>
Discover how to prepare our surface, measure proportions and capture the shapes within the flowerhead\.

\<strong\>Lesson 2: Pen \& Wash\</strong\>
Focus on the contrast in the subject and create a still life that 'reads across the room' before we begin\.

\<strong\>Lesson 3: Background
\</strong\>Balancing our background to add variety with brushstrokes, colour changes and values to draw our focus\.

\<strong\>Lesson 4: Water \& Reflections\</strong\>
How do you create realistic reflections in water? We'll break down the vase into simple shapes and look for a warm, cool pattern with a simple block\-in\.

\<strong\>Lesson 5: Flowerhead\</strong\>
Colour Mixing: The basics of colour theory and mixing a compressed colour string for realistic peony colours\.

To successfully paint the flowerhead, we'll pre\-mix some colours\. Spending 80% of the time on the palette and 20% on the canvas will help create freshness in your brushmarks\.

\<strong\>Lesson 6: Finishing Touches\</strong\>
Petal Shapes and Textures, Add blushes of colour with glazes, glimmering reflections in the water, and delicate petals to bring the painting together\.
\<h3\>Course Overview\</h3\>
Throughout this acrylic still\-life course, you'll develop essential skills and techniques to create stunning, realistic peony paintings\. We will cover everything from basic brush strokes to advanced layering techniques, ensuring you can capture the depth, richness, and texture of peonies while still adhering to classical painting techniques\.

After taking your course, you'll feel confident in your ability to paint peonies, understand fundamental drawing methods to establish proportion, scale and form and paint beautiful peony paintings that you can set up at home\.
\<h3\>What’s in the Course?\</h3\>
\<ul\>
 	\<li\>1 x Single\-Stem Peony Painting from start to finish, based in the studio, working from a reference image\.\</li\>
 	\<li\>1 x Impressionistic 'poster study' to develop loose brushstrokes\</li\>
 	\<li\>1 x sketches and Notan study \- to understand our subject\</li\>
 	\<li\>9\-lesson curriculum: study at your own pace \(with lifetime access to these recordings\)\</li\>
 	\<li\>Step\-by\-step instructional videos so that you can follow along at your own pace\.\</li\>
 	\<li\>Each stage is a detailed yet easy\-to\-follow process\.\</li\>
 	\<li\>DRAWING TEMPLATE \- line drawing to follow to help you overcome the blank page\</li\>
 	\<li\>LIFETIME ACCESS to video lessons, download on separate devices, keep forever\.\</li\>
 	\<li\>Downloadable Tools \& Materials List\</li\>
 	\<li\>Downloadable JPEG reference images and reference line drawings\.\</li\>
 	\<li\>Printable Class materials list, over 2\.5\+ hrs of detailed video instruction\.\</li\>
\</ul\>
\<h4 style="text\-align: center;"\>\</h4\>
- [Gift Card](https://willkempartschool.com/product/gift-card/)
- [Oil Portrait Colour Glazing Course](https://willkempartschool.com/product/oil-portrait-colour-glazing-course/): \<div style="padding: 56\.25% 0 0 0; position: relative;"\>\<iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;" title="How to Glaze an Oil Portrait for Beginners Course \- Will Kemp Art School" src="https://player\.vimeo\.com/video/356049029?h=6cd5c73cfa\&title=0\&byline=0\&portrait=0\&badge=0\&autopause=0\&player\_id=0\&app\_id=58479" frameborder="0"\>\</iframe\>\</div\>
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\<h4 style="text\-align: center;"\>\(Scroll down ↓ to Add to Cart\)\<span style="color: \#ff0000;"\> \</span\>\</h4\>
Do you know your Couche from your Scumble?

If you’re new to oil painting, you might have heard about the magical effects of ‘glazing’ and how using secret Old Master recipes could take your paintings to new heights\. You find yourself nodding along but inside thinking, ‘What is everyone talking about? What even is a ‘glaze recipe’?

Maybe you’ve overheard someone mention a ‘Scumble’ or read about a ‘Velatura’\. What difference do they make?

Glazing can seem like the missing link to your portrait paintings\.

And sometimes, it is\.

This oil portrait course looks specifically at colour glazing techniques\. You’ll study two portraits using two different colour palettes based in the studio, working from reference images\.

Over 6 hours of tuition, you’ll learn how to simplify the structure of the face in Grisaille, mix natural subtle skin tones with a limited palette and softly model the form\.
You’ll gradually build up the colours to increase the intensity, learning to think in layers of translucent veils of colour and multiple layers of transparent glazes over a tonal underpainting\.

Working through these simple step\-by\-step tutorials, you’ll build progressively, so by the end of this course, you’ll be creating complex, realistic, luminous portraits and have a really great understanding of how to utilize glazing in your own portrait practice\.
- [Simple Colour Mixing Acrylic Course](https://willkempartschool.com/product/simple-colour-mixing-acrylic-course/): \<div style="padding: 56\.25% 0 0 0; position: relative;"\>\<iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;" title="Acrylic Colour Mixing Course \- Will Kemp Art School" src="https://player\.vimeo\.com/video/356025436?h=546022bb81\&title=0\&byline=0\&portrait=0\&badge=0\&autopause=0\&player\_id=0\&app\_id=58479" frameborder="0"\>\</iframe\>\</div\>
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\<h3 style="text\-align: center;"\>\(Scroll down \<b\>↓\</b\> to Add to Cart\)\</h3\>
You might have been struggling to understand colour mixing for years, sometimes getting it spot on, but other times, when it goes wrong, you have no idea why or how to fix it\.

Or maybe you've read articles on colour theory but have not had the confidence to put that new knowledge into actual painting practice?

In this new Colour Mixing Course, we take a really simple, practical approach that can help you achieve the perfect colour mixes and harmony in your paintings every time\.

Over 5 hours \+ of tuition, you’ll gain an understanding of the properties of paint, learn the foundations of colour theory and put brush to canvas\.

Putting this theory into practice, you'll create a series of four still\-life paintings, applying all that new knowledge\.

We’re going to take it one step at a time, starting with learning the language of colour\. Everything will be broken down simply so that the painting exercises and studies give you the confidence you need to develop your colour\-mixing skills\.

I demonstrate using a traditional three\-primary and three\-secondary colour wheel to teach you a step\-by\-step approach\. Working through these progressive tutorials, you’ll be guided by your new colour\-mixing intuitions, opening up the fantastic world of colour\.

## Product categories
- [Beginners Art Courses](https://willkempartschool.com/product-category/beginners-courses/)
- [Still Life Acrylic Painting Courses](https://willkempartschool.com/product-category/still-life-courses/)
- [Portrait Painting Courses](https://willkempartschool.com/product-category/portrait-courses/)
- [Sketching Courses for Beginners](https://willkempartschool.com/product-category/sketching-courses/)

## Optional
- [Sitemap index](https://willkempartschool.com/sitemap_index.xml)