Light on Dark Drawing & Painting Workshop with Tom Marshall
Date: Saturday 27 September 2025
Time: 10am–4pm
Tickets: £45 / £40.50 concession
Looking for a creative reset or a fresh approach to drawing? Working in light on dark can unlock new artistic possibilities. It’s:
- Fun and visually striking
- Great for atmospheric and expressive work
- Ideal for capturing texture, detail, and mood
- Suited to both realism and abstraction
Morning Session:
We'll explore three key techniques:
- Line drawing
- Tonal work using washes or mark-making
- Highlight-focused sketching
We’ll also look at combining these methods and taking them in new directions. You’ll work from still life setups—both provided and brought from home. Items with shine or texture (like metal objects, marbles, pinecones, dried flowers, or feathers) are particularly effective. You're also welcome to bring sketches you'd like to develop.
Afternoon Session:
We'll draw from a clothed model using techniques from the morning. You’ll have the option to work on mid-toned surfaces (e.g. blue or brown paper) using both light and dark materials to explore highlights, shadow, form, and texture.
Materials Provided:
We’ll offer a range of materials including:
- White pencils and pastels
- Watercolour, pen & ink
- Scraperboard and sgraffito tools
Feel free to bring your own favourite tools, brushes, or media.
About the tutor: Tom Marshall
Tom is a full-time artist, typically making figurative art in a lively style, using a wide range of painting, drawing, and printmaking materials and methods.
Born in Gloucester, 1976, Tom grew up in the countryside, was self-taught in drawing and painting, did Fine Art at Falmouth, but, graduated without the confidence to work in art, instead, spending the next 14 years doing other things, including working in a kitchen in a Christian community, a hospital, a special needs school, and teaching English as a foreign language.
As a single parent with 2 small children, this became unsustainable, and after having some time out, Tom went self-employed as an artist in 2013. Since then, he has taken part in various solo, group, and open exhibitions, and won prizes including in plein air (outdoor) painting competitions.
With the kids being more independent, Tom has begun to teach more workshops, and one of his favourite things is to introduce people to new materials and to new ways of making art.
One of the most rewarding, fun and encouraging to work in, and great for those looking to stretch their artwork in new directions, is working in light materials on dark backgrounds.
This is ideal for anyone stuck in a rut, for anyone who wants to learn to look at things in a new way. It lends itself both to highly-figurative work, to work with great atmosphere or texture, but also to abstraction, and it can be a springboard for anyone interested in optical illusions, or anyone wanting to improve their composition. It invites simplifying, but it is also wonderful for detail. It is fun, and the results can be spectacular, and there is huge potential for variety within it, both in materials and in possible approaches to it
