Watercolour and drawing · Paddington, Brisbane
Learn to see like a painter.
Small in-person classes in a sunlit Paddington studio, taught by Mara Ellis. Short lessons, real momentum, and a habit you keep long after the term ends.
Next course starts demo date
Tuesdays, 10am · 6 weeks · Up to 10 seats · beginners
Next course starts demo date
Thursdays, 6pm · 8 weeks · Up to 10 seats · some experience
Next course starts demo date
Saturdays, 9am · 4 weeks · Up to 10 seats · beginners
Next starts
Pick a door, then pick a seat.
Prices are the full term fee including GST, nothing added at the door. Start dates are demo dates until Mara confirms what is free.
Watercolour FoundationsMost requested
Water, pigment, paper, negotiated from the first class. Materials supplied.
Tuesdays, 10am · 6 weeks
Up to 10 seats · beginners
The flagship. Weekly critique included, materials supplied.
Thursdays, 6pm · 8 weeks
Up to 10 seats · some experience
Four weeks, small daily pages. Bring your own kit; a starter list is emailed on booking.
Saturdays, 9am · 4 weeks
Up to 10 seats · beginners
Why this studio exists
Watercolour rewards the relaxed hand.
Most beginners are taught to control the medium, and watercolour punishes control. The pigment wants to move, so the courses teach decisions rather than grip: how much water, which pigment, where the light lives. Then the medium does the rest.
How the teaching works
Three habits every course is built on
The method is the same whether it is your first class or your fourth term.
Short exercises, real momentum
Nothing over twenty minutes. You watch one idea, paint one page, and the brush is wet before the hesitation arrives.
Critique that actually looks
Pages come back marked up in the room: what worked, what drowned, and the one thing to try next.
Sketchbook first, frame later
The sketchbook is the gym, not the gallery. Fill pages without ceremony and the frameable ones arrive on their own.
Paint from life: a still life set up fresh most weeks.
The studio
What the room looks like on a Tuesday
Photographed on an ordinary Tuesday, not a styled one.
Room for tenEasels spaced properly, so nobody is painting over anybody’s shoulder.
One jar, a few brushesThe whole materials list fits in a jar.
The wash
The jacaranda
What’s in the fee
A starter palette, mapped for you.
Every course works from the same short list: one round of pans, two brushes, one pad of paper.
Ten seats at most
So everyone in the room gets looked at.
Materials, stated plainly
Foundations and Landscapes supply them, yours to keep. The Habit is bring-your-own with a starter list.
Nothing to buy on night one
The full supply list, with where to get it locally, goes out when you book.
Critique that actually looks
Marked-up pages in the room, kind and specific, never a template reply.
Miss a class, keep the week
Tell Mara beforehand and the exercise sheet is held for you to catch up at home.
Pay later, or in two
The fee is settled before or at the first class. Ask about splitting it; it is usually possible.
A tutor’s hands at the easel. Demo photo, not a portrait of Mara.
Who teaches
Painter first, teacher by accident.
A neighbour asked for help with skies. One Tuesday lesson became six, her pages went from muddy to luminous, and strangers started asking for the same thing.
Mara Ellis teaches every class herself. Nothing here is a video recorded once and replayed: if you are in the room, you are getting looked at, and the page in front of you gets a real answer.
From the studio
Sample notes, left after a term
What changes after a few weeks of pages.
“I came in sure I couldn’t draw, and nobody asked me to. The short exercises are sneaky: you are improving before you notice you are practising.”
Ruth A. · Ashgrove
“The critique on Landscapes is worth the term fee on its own. Mara found the same mistake in three of my pages and fixed all of them with one sentence.”
Tomás H. · West End
“I have filled four sketchbooks since the Habit course. My phone gallery used to be screenshots; now it is pages.”
Wren K. · Paddington
There is usually a seat left in the next term.
Classes are small on purpose, so the earlier you ask, the better the chance.
Next course starts Tue 3 Nov · $220 · up to 10 seats demo date
Next: Tue 3 Nov · $220