Leisure Painter

Leisure Painter - the number one learn-to-paint magazine featuring practical painting and drawing features from top art tutors. Includes step-by-step tuition and easy-to-follow advice on how to draw and paint.

Editor's welcome

Leisure Painter

Editor's choice • Affordable Art Fair's International Women's Day exhibition

Spotlight on art • A round-up of events and ideas to enjoy live and online

Painting the positive • With a practice rooted in classical technique and contemporary purpose, Caroline de Peyrecave uses portraiture to amplify women's stories. In this interview, she reflects on her artistic journey, the challenges facing women in the art world, and the inspiration behind her forthcoming exhibition Empowering Her

In my gallery… • In this new feature, each month we'll chat to a curator about what is currently occupying their gallery. This edition we chat to Rhian Roberts, the Curator of the Inspired by… gallery at Danby who has curated the North Yorkshire Open Studios Spring Showcase

Loose & lively Painting a bustling street scene • Bring a busy street to life using bold, fast, and loose watercolour techniques. Balance light and shadow, simplify shapes and create a lively scene full of movement and atmosphere.

10 mins with… CATRIONA STEWART

Empowering Women Artists • We chat to Rachel Parker, President of The Society of Women Artists, about its beginnings, current projects and plans for the future

A joyful palette • We chat to American artist Jenny Buckner, winner of The Painters Online Award at the 18th International ARC Salon, with her painting, His Joy and Light

MIST Love in a • Create a delicate nigella study using layered washes, soft edges and fine brushwork. This step-by-step watercolour project explores glazing, wet-in-wet colour and expressive mark-making to build depth and movement in a small floral composition

Q&A Mixing in other mediums • Professional coloured pencil artist Helen Carter, provides helpful guidance on experimenting mixing coloured pencil with other mediums to create different effects

Art clubs • Over to you for the latest news on your club exhibitions and activities

Exhibitions

Art club challenge • In celebration of women in the art world we set the challenge of ‘Her’ back in the November issue

LAST CHANCE: Anna Ancher: Painting Light • Until 8th March 2026, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, SE21 7AD

Dear Diary

Leading a fairer future for ILLUSTRATION • As the newly appointed Chair of the AOI, Josie Dobrin OBE outlines her mission to improve access, fair pay and visibility for women illustrators

Figures, light & shadow • Caroline Saunders talks to Michael Alford about his sensitive rendering of shadow and light in his acutely observed classical nudes

Girl with a Pearl Earring • This issue Sarah Middleton looks at the most famous of Johannes Vermeer's paintings… the Girl with a Pearl Earring

ART BOOKS

SENSING, SEEING AND PAINTING THE intangible PART 2 • Ingrid Brown continues her series exploring how mood, weather, light, emotion and setting affect painting and how to convey these in paint. In this issue Ingrid introduces her passion for embracing the weather as a collaborator

Let watercolour work for you • Watercolour proved the ideal medium for John Owen to paint fast en plein air impressions in Iceland

PART 3 Shades of grey • This third article of twelve fundamental watercolour techniques, from Catherine Beale, examines how to mix colour to create spring clouds from a variety of greys and represent ‘weather' in its complexity

Finding light in the everyday • From recycling bins to linen canvases, Sandra Busby reveals how reflection, transparency and...