Sisley Paris x Soho Farmhouse - Watercolour Workshop

I started this year with the most amazing message dropping into my email, it was from my friend Abigail (of Petal Studio) recommending me as a tutor for a watercolour workshop...

I was thrilled to be considered, but even more excited when it turned out to be a request from Soho Farmhouse, on behalf of Sisley Paris, the iconic skincare brand of which I was a huge fan. Of course I leapt at the chance and sent over a wad of paintings. After a few emails back and forth with Sisley we established that we wanted their guests to enjoy a relaxed, no-pressure workshop in which they would be gently guided on how to paint the key botanical ingredients in Sisley's newest addition to their skincare line. We agreed that using references that I had painted would be the best way for the ladies to see how their paintings would turn out. So I set out to learn how to paint these wonderful plants that I had never previously paid much attention to...

The first was Persian Acacia, a wonderful transformative plant with large clustered leaves, long bulky seed pods and the most beautiful of frothy fan-like flowers. The biggest challenge I found was creating definition in the flower, previous attempts made it look like one enormous petal, I soon realised that painting each individual line and clustering them together would give me the effect that I was looking for.

The next was ginkgo, an instantly recognisable and distinguished leaf shape which I knew would make people feel quite daunted. The challenge was formulating a series of steps in which this could be painted with ease, through very simple mark making. I started by asking them to paint a 'V' followed by an elongated T-shape, then they were guided to connect the two shapes together... much to the relief of the class when their gingko leaves suddenly took shape!

Lastly I focused on painting the Lindera, its leaves were rather basic and very simple to paint so I kicked off our workshop with a warm-up exercise in which I asked the ladies to use the tip and the belly of the brush to create the desired simple shape of a leaf.

We then went on to paint the gingko leaves and with time starting to tick down I decided to forgo the tutorial for the more delicate Acacia leaves and instead asked them to focus on painting its flower instead. Out of the three subjects we painted during this workshop it was clear to see that the flower, with its bright pink hue, was the most fun and the easiest to paint.

Overall, the beautiful setting of Soho Farmhouse, Sisley's stunning tablescape and the company of eager and creative women who were willing to give watercolours a go (even after a long day of brand work) made for a very relaxing and creative afternoon. Their paintings were beautiful and they made my job incredibly easy!

I look forward to doing more workshops at Farmhouse and am so grateful to have learned so much from this first one.

Laura x