Tutor: Janie Pirie
Date: Tuesday 4th March 2025 - Thursday 6th March 2025
Time: 10:00 - 13:00
Cost: £110
Location: Online

During this workshop Janie will show you how to colour a Hellebore from a photograph. Although this won’t teach you how to draw, you will learn how to use coloured pencils and get the very best out of them, enabling you to create more of your own art using this wonderful, but very forgiving medium. Janie will demonstrate how to tackle the detailed centres of these beautiful flowers, as well as how to colour their intricate petals and markings.

Tutor: Lizzie Harper
Date: Thursday 13th March 2025 - Friday 14th March 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom

This two-day course gives you the chance to get lost in drawing and painting the gorgeous cherry blossom and magnolias flowering in Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Join Lizzie for a two-day course looking at, learning about, and drawing and painting these stunning springtime blooms.

Tutor: Janie Pirie
Date: Tuesday 18th March 2025 - Thursday 20th March 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £210
Location: Classroom

Fruit and vegetables have long been a favourite of the botanical illustrator, but taking a look at them from the inside is possibly even more exciting. We’re not talking about two or three tiny pips inside an apple but more the glorious formation of pips inside a bell pepper or a melon, or even the juicy inside of an orange or grapefruit. There are endless subjects just waiting for us to open them up and record the bits we don’t see. There will be lots of demonstrations as well as individual tuition from your RHS gold medal award-winning tutor.

Tutor: Reinhild Raistrick
Date: Tuesday 8th April 2025 - Wednesday 9th April 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom

Celebrate the beauty of spring by learning to illustrate vibrant tulips in this two-day watercolour course. Early April is the perfect time to capture these stunning blooms, and the course offers a unique opportunity to work in situ with tulips from the Garden's national collection displayed in the Alpine glasshouse. Under the expert guidance of Reinhild, you'll learn techniques for recording the rapidly changing blooms and capturing their brilliant colours with precision. Cut stems and potted bulbs will also be provided in the classroom for close observation and practice.

Tutor: Lizzie Harper
Date: Wednesday 14th May 2025 - Friday 16th May 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £210
Location: Classroom

This workshop will look at leaf variety and is a chance to take plenty of time to study and illustrate one leaf in detail in watercolour. We’ll look at using watercolour and mixing greens, shadows, veins and patterns on a leaf, and how to build up layers of colour and detail. If there’s time, you’ll be able to work on more than one leaf, comparing colour, shape, and vein structure. Lizzie will be on hand throughout the course doing demonstrations, teaching, and giving one-to-one advice and tips. This course is suitable for all levels with group and individual guidance. A suggested materials list will be provided a few weeks before the start of the course.

Tutor: Lizzie Harper
Date: Wednesday 2nd July 2025 - Friday 4th July 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £210
Location: Classroom

This three-day course will celebrate the beautiful annual summer flower meadow at Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Over the first two days, we will observe, draw and paint the cornflowers, poppies, marigolds, grasses and daisies growing in the meadow. This will include a talk on the wildflower meadow by Dr Raphaella Hull, the Garden’s Higher Education and Interpretation Coordinator. On the final day, you will use your sketches and skills to work on an illustration combining several of these glorious summer flowers.

Tutor: Reinhild Raistrick
Date: Tuesday 9th September 2025 - Wednesday 10th September 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £155
Location: Classroom

The end of summer and the beginning of autumn reward us with a wonderful array of brightly coloured fruit and unusual seedheads. In this two-day watercolour course, you will create a medley of images using various watercolour techniques, from dry brushwork to wet-in-wet washes. Botanical artist Reinhild Raistrick will be on hand to guide you through the process, from composing a pleasing portrait to painting the shine on glossy berries and mixing the colours for an autumn leaf.

Tutor: Janie Pirie
Date: Tuesday 07th October 2025 - Thursday 09th October 2025
Time: 10:00 - 16:00
Cost: £210
Location: Classroom


It’s not often beginners get the chance to learn the absolute basics of coloured pencil art. On this course, Janie will take you through all the fundamentals to start your journey into the wonderful world of coloured pencils. Simple subjects will be available for you to draw, before transferring your drawing to good quality art paper. You will then begin learning how to lay down colour so it looks like a brush stroke of paint, how to blend colours seamlessly and how to create veins and contours on leaves to make them look amazingly three-dimensional.

Tutor: Janie Pirie
Date: Wednesday 11th November 2025 - Friday 13th November 2025
Time: 10:00 - 13:00
Cost: £110
Location: Online

A chance to learn about using coloured pencils without the worry of having to draw something first! You will be supplied with a photograph taken by Janie, your tutor, together with a line drawing for you to trace and transfer. Instructions will be sent before the course. You will see demonstrations throughout the course to help you go through the process in the right order, helping you to end up with a beautiful rose illustration of your own.