Spend the day exploring the challenges of rendering a snowy winter scene using pen and wash with the artist John Harrison.

In a departure from John's usual palette of spring-like greens and fresh blue skies, you'll spend the day exploring the challenges of rendering a snowy winter scene- still following John's style of pen and wash, but with a distinctly wintery theme. John will supply the reference image for the main painting, but you're more than welcome to bring your own if you have a particular favourite image: there will also be a good range of alternative photos to choose from- who knows, you might create the image for this year's Christmas card?

About the Artist

John Harrison - Yorkshire born and bred - and proud of it.

John produces drawings and then adds colour in the form of watercolour washes, not too dissimilar to a traditional painter. He will often start with a pencil drawing, add watercolour washes, then add ink lines over the top, but usually starts with a line drawing in ink, or more often, a sketch.The inspiration for much of his work is to be found within Yorkshire’s borders, and running a close second, the English Lake District: townscapes, landscapes (as long as there’s a building of some sort!), walls, hamlets, villages, ports and harbours as his main subjects. He's always looking for a different viewpoint of familiar places – a dynamic angle, with strong light and shade, which helps the drawing come alive.

John was a participant in 2017's Sky Arts Landscape Artists of the Year competition, and undertakes commissions for private individuals and corporate clients.He also appeared on the 2022 edition of Watercolour Challenge on Channel 5.

He was commissioned to write a best selling book on his signature techniques-'Pen and Wash', published by Crowood Press in 2024, which was followed in August 2026 by a similar work on ink drawing..'Pen Drawing', also by Crowood. Both are available on Amazon, and from John himself.

Materials to Bring

A waterproof ink pen, such as the UniPin, in a fine nib size. John's preferred is a 0.1, with 0.2, 0.3 used for emphasis and contrast.

Pencils –the softer the better: 2B ,3B or 4B

Watercolour paints: either tubes or pans, and a range of colours. A limited palette of colours: Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, Alazirin Crimson and Paynes Grey are the main ones.

Brushes: Watercolour brushes of decent quality, and larger sizes –a size 10, 12 or 14 would be good. John uses a range of squirrel mop brushes for their versatility, but any good synthetic round brushes will do.

Watercolour paper: the heavier the weight the better. John prefers to use a minimum of 300g Saunders Waterford in a rough finish, which helps enormously with the brush effects he use in my work.

If you can't readily source the pens and paper, John will have a supply for purchase on the day.

Description supplied by the event organiser.