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PAINTING - TESSA PEARSON - Layered Landscapes- Exploring Colour and Pattern with collage

Sunday 27 September 2026 17:00
Friday 2 October 2026 14:00

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Cut Garden Violet Spires 54x54cm acrylic gouache and collage.jpg

Layered Landscapes- Exploring Colour and Pattern with collage

In this workshop you will respond to the wonderful hedgerows , gardens and landscape at Coombe Farm.

Looking for colour combinations, pattern and rhythms in the fields and gardens, using watercolour with a variety of mixed media including oil pastels, gouache and crayons you will make lively spontaneous sketchbook studies to then translate into more considered paintings in the studio, capturing the energy and characteristics of the direct observation. Tessa will demonstrate her process and techniques for combining watercolour and hand painted collage papers, adding texture and layers and exploring the possibilities of abstract compositions.

This course is suitable for those with a small amount of experience in water based media and who are willing to experiment.
SUNDAY
5-7pm Residents Arrive
7.00pm Non residents arrive
7.00pm Welcome Drinks
8pm Dinner
MONDAY-THURSDAY
8.30am Breakfast
9.30am Tuition
1.00pm Lunch
2-5pm Tuition resumes
7.00pm Dinner
FRIDAY
8.30am Breakfast
9.30am Final tuition session
1.00pm Lunch
2.00pm Course ends
We have onsite accommodation. You can book in as a resident and stay with us, or a ‘non-resident’ if you wish to stay elsewhere or if you live nearby.
More information here
Residential
£903 + VAT includes tuition, accommodation and food from arrival on Sunday through to departure after lunch on Friday.
Non-residential
£650 + VAT include all tuition, welcome drinks on Sunday and lunch from Mon-Friday.

Please bring the following with you;
Sketchbooks – A3 or A4 size, watercolour paper and heavy cartridge- I like Moleskin hardback watercolour, and Seawhite are also good. You will need two or more.
Loose watercolour paper, at least 300g weight. Bockingford or Saunders Waterford NOT. Minimum 5 sheets (if you don’t want to travel with paper we have Saunders Waterford at Coombe for sale at £5/sheet)
Watercolour paints (tubes are best, or squeeze tubes into your pans) including the following colours:
- Lemon yellow, Green Gold, Cadmium orange, Opera rose, Vermillion, Cerulean, Cobalt blue, indigo, Burnt sienna, Sepia
- Large tube Permanent White Designers Gouache – Winsor and Newton
- Koh -i-Noor Anilinky watercolour ink 12 disc palette (not the round 24 set)
Brushes
- Should include at least a flat, a rigger, a large soft mop and an Isabey size 1 squirrel mop.
Pencils – 2B 4B 8B
- Derwent sketching pencil Dark Wash
Watercolour crayons
- Derwent Inktense are excellent.
Oil pastels
- Inscribe are good.
Acrylic inks
- Daler Rowney Black, white,yellow, magenta, cyan
Other items
- Berol Handwriting pens (Black) and a permanent black ink pen
- Large pan palette/ 2 plastic water pots ( square deep takeaway boxes work well)plus large water carrier- empty milk container? Collection of small plastic pots( ex yogurt or humous pots for inks)
- Kitchen roll, bull dog clips /rubber bands to hold sketchbooks, glue stick, masking fluid
- Selection of interesting textured papers for collage, Scalpel or craft knife.
- Small folding stool (you can borrow one from Coombe if you don’t have one or are travelling by train) for working outside, and a rucksack/suitable bag to carry painting gear and sketchbooks around.
Feel free to also bring any of your own selection of watercolour paints, inks, brushes, crayons etc.
We are located in Devon between Totnes and Dartmouth.
Our postcode is TQ6 0JA
Driving
We have plenty of free onsite parking.
Trains
Totnes is nearest station then we can arrange lift shares or send taxi details. We are about 20 minutes from the station and costs approx £35 each way.
[What3words: What3words: fulfilled.exploring.branching]
Min 6 max 12 to allow the tutor to give everyone enough attention and time on the press.
Tessa studied Printed Textile design at UCA Farnham and the Royal College of Art, where she won the Courtaulds Prize and was commissioned by Liberty of London to produce a collection of printed silks. As Tessa Lambert she opened her own print studio and gallery in London and successfully sold her distinctive handpainted silks around the world. Since 2000 Tessa’s professional practise has centred on her continuing passion for colour. Her work is an intuitive response to recollections of moments in time and special places, inspired by pattern and rhythms in space, currently is focusing on watercolour painting, mixed media and printmaking,working in series to explore and revisit a theme many times.
Tessa regularly exhibits and sells her work and teaches in the UK and internationally and has always been in love with colour. She has spent her life seeing the world as a myriad of pattern and captivating images. Marvelling at patches of brilliant yellow in a dramatic patchwork green landscape, the glimpse of a violet pot against a cobalt blue wall will thrill her. Her influences have been many, from Matisse to Hodgkin and the bold colourists of mid twenty first century painters Patrick Heron and Albert Irvin.