Watercolour Primer for All: Beginners & Seasoned Painters Welcome
Registration
$425.00
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Timothy James Standring
Monday to Friday, September 21 – September 25, 2026
10:00am – 4:00pm
With wit and whimsy, filled with a passionate knowledge of the history of watercolor painting, Timothy James Standring will hold your attention during this five-day workshop in which you’ll cover all the basics. Fundamentally, you’ll learn with hands-on exercises that watercolor techniques are closely aligned with paper surfaces, brushes, and even the pigments themselves. All of these have interesting properties that lend to the final painting.
You’ll experiment with cold and hot press papers, natural and artificial brushes, different brands of watercolor pigments, learn how to stretch paper, and set up your portable kit for painting on site while traveling for pleasure or for work. We will be painting in the classroom as well as on location throughout the area such as Hirtles’ Beach, Stonehurst East, among others. And most of all, you’ll learn how to discern what constitutes a true watercolor painting.
Students should bring:
- Watercolor pad (Recommended: 9 x 12 inches, Arches or Saunders Waterford Cold Press Blocks).
- Small watercolor sketch book: my favorite is from the Hand Book Journal Co (distributed by Speedball Art Products) (3.5 x 5.5 inches), because the pages takes quick watercolor sketches well.
- Watercolor recommendations: We will set up our palettes on the first day of class. Purchase artist quality, not student quality, .5 ml tube pigments. These are made by Windsor Newton, Schmincke (Horadan Aquarell), Daniel Smith, or Holbein: (Windsor Newton: Neutral Tint, Cobalt Turquoise, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Windsor Violet, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Orange), Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre, Transparent Yellow Ochre (Schmincke), Lemon Yellow, Ivory Black, Titanium White, and Lavender (Holbein).
- Watercolor brushes: Fuumuui Professional Watercolor Brushes or Silver velvet black velvet rounds and flats of a variety of sizes (which vary according to manufacturers); an inexpensive goat’s hair ½ and 1–inch flat brush; a stubby bristle oil painter’s brush, number 4 bright; and a small stubby brush for mixing colors on your palette.
- Two containers for water: (Recommended: Sea to Summit brand collapsible, and Holbein hanging water collapsible cup); small pump spray water bottle; sponge (rectangle kitchen sponge), and Viva paper towels.
- Watercolor palette—the flat rectangular box for mixing colors (Recommended: Holbein enameled palette or a flat plastic palette that folds, but there are many to select from on DeSerres.ca, or other online vendors). A broad porcelain white dinner plate purchased at a thrift store will do as well, but cumbersome when painting onsite. If you purchase the plastic palette, wash off the surface with a plastic sponge and soapy warm water before putting pigment into the small boxes. We can do this on the first day of class.
- ½ inch artist masking tape
- 2 oz pump spray bottle
- Graphite pencil (Recommended: Faber Castell 3 H “grip 2001”)
- Roll of soft paper towels [Viva is recommended]
- Equipment for open air painting: recommended for lightweight painting easels with tripods (avoid the large wooden boxes). You can position your easel to paint standing up or sitting down, and if the latter, a small stool. Check out the second half of this video for equipment recommendations, especially the lighter weight easel from Plein Air Pro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcUmGjENHsk
- Enthusiasm, curiosity, courage to mess up your palette, and questions!
Bookings
Timothy James Standring
Though small in scale, Timothy James Standring’s works in watercolours pierce the assumed poetics that the medium aspires to express. Over the past decade, Standring has brought a gimlet-eyed attention to a painterly parity of close observation and delight in his material. Deft material sensitivity and technique, both traditional and radical, register in the recurring themes he paints. Moreover, Standring’s influences stem from in a line of artists extending from Edgar Degas and John Singer Sargent to Joaquìn Sorolla and Andrew and Jamie Wyeth.
Standring’s works are held in numerous private collections across North American and Europe. On three occasions his works have been included in the prestigious 10 x 10 x 10 juried exhibition in Tieton, Washington. He also exhibited in the Coors Western Art Exhibition in 2022, 2023, and again for 2024, and last year was included in the Colorado Governor’s Art Show in Loveland, Colorado. One of his monographic exhibitions at the gallery of the Metropolitan Frame Company in Denver was reviewed by the national critic Ray Rainaldi; another show at Claggett-Rey Gallery in Edwards was cited in Fine Art Connoisseur. He is represented in Denver by Gallery 1261, and in Edwards, Colorado by Claggett-Rey Gallery.
A sensitive and voluble teacher, Standring has conducted this watercolor painting workshops at the Art Students League of Denver; Rockland, Maine; and Breckenridge, Colorado. He is a member of the Colorado Watercolor Society.