......making learning at a distance easier
Botanical Art Online Dianne Sutherland
The Botanical Illustration Course
The next course begins 30th June 2026, booking available now. Limited places available
My most popular and comprehensive course continues to grow. When I first began creating courses 15 years ago, my goal was to include every aspect of botanical art I wished I’d had access to when I was starting out as an artist.
NEXT COURSE START DATE 30th June 2026. The updated course includes even more content. I'm also pleased to announce a Student Blog which has regular posts to support the course and a Student Forum for discussion, and a new section on how to capture your artwork for digital submissions. The course price is £595.
The Course in Brief
Learn Botanical Drawing and Painting
Develop the botanical drawing and painting techniques that will enable you to grow as a botanical artist or illustrator and begin taking your work towards a more professional level.
The course is structured into two modules with a total of eight assessed assignments.
Module 1: Graphite
Drawing, Line and Tone
Study Page and Composition
Final Graphite Botanical Drawing
Module 2: Painting
Watercolour Techniques
Leaf Library
Flower Library
Study Page and Composition
Final Watercolour Botanical Painting
Course Duration and Access
Most students complete the course within 12–18 months, but you will have 27 months of full access to the course materials, including the extensive video library and printed resources.
Feedback and Support
Receive personalised written feedback for each assignment,
Email support is available throughout the course, along with a web chat facility.
Video calls can also be arranged on request for additional guidance.
Flexible Timeframe
The course is designed to be flexible. If life gets in the way, you can still complete the programme within the 27‑month access period. After this time, continued access will require an additional payment.
Check out the Student Gallery - click here
Create a full graphite illustration and study page
More About the Botanical Illustration Course
This course will guide you through the complete process of producing beautiful botanical illustrations - from plant to painting through he modules described above. You will receive additional advice on materials, workspace setup, and the essential drawing and painting techniques needed to develop as a botanical artist.
Throughout the course, you will work through a series of drawing and painting exercises, followed by study pages, and ultimately create final works in both graphite and watercolour.
What Else Will You Will Learn
The course is continually updated and now includes new sections on:
Dissection and scaling
Aerial perspective techniques
Exploring below‑ground plant structures
Leaf Library and Flower Library assignments
Colour‑mixing tutorials, including guidance on challenging colours such as greens, yellows, whites, and more
These additions ensure you are learning the most relevant and comprehensive botanical illustration techniques.
Learning Resources
I strongly believe that distance learning requires in‑depth, high‑quality materials. To support your progress, the course includes:
Printable learning materials
An extensive video library
A dedicated image library, including reference photographs and dissection images
These resources allow you to study at your own pace and revisit techniques whenever needed.
It now includes free tutorials on atercolour Techniques, Colour mixing and Dry Brush (normal cost around £150)
Feedback and Support
You will receive:
Written tutor feedback for each assignment
Digital edits of your work, when helpful, to demonstrate alternative approaches
Access to a student social media group for discussion and peer support, where I also participate and answer questions when available to do so.
Focused on Your Development
This course is designed to help you develop your own style through technique‑based learning. It is not a paint‑along style course - you will be encouraged and supported to research and choose subjects that genuinely interest you.
Feedback and guidance are provided at every stage, including support with areas you may find challenging.
Additional Guidance
You will also receive advice on exhibiting and marketing your work, helping you take your botanical art further if you choose to do so.
The Modules
The course is delivered in 2 Modules: Drawing with Graphite and Painting with Watercolour, you will also be expected to keep a sketchbook as part of your work. Take a look at the student gallery to see examples of some work by students
Part 1. Drawing with Graphite: This part of the course teaches line and tonal drawing including the graphite techniques: hatching, cross hatching, stipple and continuous tone. Measured line drawings and simple tonal shapes and subjects will enable you to understand form in relation to light. Thereafter, you will draw subjects such as leaves and flowers in, profile and perspective. These techniques are put into practice in a study page exercise exercise before undertaking your final graphite composition and tonal drawing. Above is an example of a tonal drawing of Primula vulgaris, which was prepared in advance of a colour illustration. Note the small compositional changes made in the final painting. You may also complete a tonal painting using one colour. You can now also opt to use ink for some exercises
Graphite Tutor Assessed Assignments
1. Line and tone drawing, graphite techniques
2. Creating a study page and composition drafts
3. Final graphite botanical illustration
Other exercises and activities from the course:
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Setting up workspace, subjects and lighting
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Making the Cut: Dissection and scaling parts
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Create leaf and flower study pages, demonstrating diversity in each
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Below ground, roots bulbs and stems
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'Rules' of composition and guidance
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Creating depth, separation and distance, aerial perspective
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Trouble shooting - how to repair mistakes
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Photographing, scanning and emailingk work NEW
Part 2. Painting with Watercolour: The second half of the course focuses on purist watercolour techniques. You will learn the various washes and dry brush techniques, including flat, graded and blended wash, wet-in-wet as well as my own dry brush techniques. You will explore colour mixing using a limited palette to achieve accurate matching and harmonious variations. After completing some exercises with studies of leaves, stems, fruit and flowers ( with new examples for August), you will put these techniques into practice by choosing a subject for a colour study page, this will include colour mixing and colour charts. Thereafter, composition exercises will help you to move on to your final study, a full botanical illustration of a subject of your choice.
Watercolour Tutor Assessed Assignments
1. Watercolour techniques
2. Flower Library
3. Leaf Library
4. Create a study page of your chosen subject,
draft composition and make and optional tonal painting
5. Final watercolour botanical illustration
Includes:
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Many supporting videos, in real time with new material added based on requests from students.
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Downloadable materials, worksheets and documents including an leaf colour chart exercise
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Guidance on botanical terminology
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Access to an online image library for leaves, flowers and dissections and other course images so that you can view up close
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Access to three tutorials on Waterclour techniques, colour mixing and dry brush techniques NEW
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Troubleshooting - repairing mistakes using watercolour
A Few Course Highlights
The Techniques at the Core of Botanical Art
At the heart of the course are the techniques in both graphite and watercolour, these are your building blocks for success.
In the first part of the course you will begin with the basics and will learn how to observe, from materials and set up before moving on to measuring and drawing using a variety of methods. Next you will create 3D tonal drawings using continuous tone, stipple and hatching by carrying out a range of exercises. This give you the foundations for the the next part of the course, to create a study page and final botanical drawing, good drawing and understanding of tonal values is essential before moving on to colour
In the second part of the course, colour is most welcome after all of the graphite work! Begin with the foundations of my techniques and colour mixing in the first exercises, it's not just colour swatches but putting colour into practice with small subjects too, next dig deeper with those colours and techniques with a range of diverse flowers and leaves, before moving on to your plant of choice with the study page, this is the part everybody seems to indulge in! then its time for the finale when you will create your composition and the final botanical illustration in watercolour.
Also new for 2026
More on Troubleshooting in both graphite and watercolour, how to avoid mistakes but when they do happen, lean how to repair them. A Private Student Blog and Forum for students.
Study Pages
Learning how to research your subject by creating annotated study pages is an integral part of becoming a botanical illustrator, and for each part of the course you will learn how to do this in graphite and watercolour as preparation for your final illustrations, often students find that they really enjoy this aspect of the research.
Graphite Study Page, Hellebore
Colour Study Page for a final drawing of Ludisia discolor
Making the Cut: Dissect and Illustrate
This new section of the course teaches you to dissect and identify plant parts in a range of different flowers, and gives insights on how to identify and label the parts, so will learn a little more about the botany side of your subject matter. you will also have access advice on botanical terminology and identifying parts as well as an online image library of photographs and illustrations of dissected flowers and plant parts.
You will also learn to use scale bars and will be introduced to understanding and drawing floral diagrams. This supplementary material will enable you to add accurate dissections to your illustrations.
Depth, Separation and Distance
From my years teaching I believe that one of the most challenging areas for botanical art students is the overlapping parts of plants, particularly leaves. You will learn how to deal with such parts in order to create depth, separation and distance in your work.
Trying to decide which areas should be lighter or darker and why can be difficult so. In response I have written a new section of the course addressing aerial perspective and other strategies to deal with this complex area within a composition.
The example shown here is Calotropis gigantea, giant milkweed, it demonstrates using different saturations and values in overlapping leaves.
Below Ground, Roots and Bulbs etc
We should not forget about the parts of the plant underground, these tell an important part of the story for many plants, and so, I have decided to dedicate a new section to them.
In this new section I shows how to deal with illustrating the complex parts and negative space found in roots and bulbs, corms and tubers,
as well as different bulb, corm and tuber surfaces, which can be challenging to paint.
Here you can see the intricate fine roots that grow from the base of a Cyclamen coum tuber, its important to know how roots emerge from the tuber as other species have roots that grow from the sides as well as from the base.
Sketchbook
In addition to the course you will be expected to organise work into a sketchbook, some students find this daunting and initially, there is no pressure to make perfect sketch book pages and you will be given guidance about what to include and why but keep in mind that its a more relaxed activity, for your own benefit. your sketchbook can contain your initial studies for coursework or plants drawn and painted for you own interest.
Over time it will become invaluable reference material for you and I guarantee that it will improve you work.
The sketchbook will not be assessed but you will be expected to submit some examples of sketchbooks studies, which support your working practice.
Shown here: From my personal sketchbook, Ranunculus repens, The creeping buttercup, medium watercolour and graphite
Is this Course Right for You?
There are no prerequisite qualifications or experience required for this course, however, it does require some independent working and decision making and you have to choose appropriate subjects to study and illustrate in depth with a considerable amount of technique exercises to complete. That said you will receive support and guidance throughout. If you are an absolute beginner and want to gain some painting experience first, you may want to consider one of the tutorials in drawing and watercolour or the new Botanical Art for Beginners tutorial or Course, which have specific subjects and watercolour techniques tailored for beginners. Click here to find out more about the Starting Small: Beginners assessed course,
Take a look at a few pages from a supplementary worksheet below to give you an idea of the content in Botanical Illustration. There is a lot of content in this course and this is just a supplementary part of the course with advice on colour mixing and leaves, these supplementary parts are there to support your learning and new videos are bing added on tricky subject areas such as complex flower centres and roots.
Feedback
You will receive comprehensive written feedback for 6 assignments, plus the two new optional assignments on flowers and leaves. I usually edit the work digitally to show students, where changes could be made, this approach provides students with clear guidance on 'what to change and how to do it', work may also be resubmitted with changes to ensure that you have understood and benefitted from the advice. There is also a final overall appraisal and recommended 'next steps' in the final feedback. Email support is available throughout if you need help or advice during the assignments and a student Facebook group provides additional support. You may also take a break if needed as life sometimes gets in the way.
When does the course start and when will I receive access to the materials?
The next course date is June 30th 2026.
How long does this course take?
A period of approximately 48 - 52 weeks but you may take more or less time on particular assignments/parts if you wish. I like to keep this flexible and believe that each student is different. You will have access to the materials for up to 27 months for those who need more time, occasionally this can be extended. There is and additional fee if you need longer than 27 months years.
How much does it cost?
The course cost is £595, this is payable by direct bank transfer or via Paypal. You may pay in full for the price shown or two instalments, with two payments of £250 and £345, the final payment must be paid in full at least one week before the course start date.
What previous experience do I need to undertake this course?
Although there is no prerequisite qualification for this course, it is envisaged that students will have some basic experience in painting or drawing, this does not need to be in botanical work. If you are unsure whether or not this course is right for you please email me for advice at info@botanicalart-online.com
What materials do I need to undertake the course?
Here is a general list of suggested materials for prospective students (currently being revised due to changes in availability and quality of materials)
You don't need all of the items on the list and alternative brands can be used because availability varies from country to country.
IT Specifications
An internet connection and email account, such as a gmail address are required.
You will need to have Adobe Reader to access the PDF documents. The documents can also be saved and printed off if you have a printer.
You will need to take good quality digital photographs or make 300 dpi resolution scans of your work. You will need to email the images as jpegs for assessment.
Videos on the website are viewed via YouTube.
Advices is giben as part of the course on how to prepare images for submission.
All of the above are fairly standard on most computers. But please email me if you have any questions.
To Register:
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Click the 'Buy Now' Paypal button below, you will be redirected to Paypal, the account is in the name Picturehouse. You will have the option of paying via a Paypal account or by credit /debit card.
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If someone else paid for you, could also send me an email to confirm who is taking the course.
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If you wish to pay in 2 instalments use the 'Prebook Deposit Button', the course must be paid in full 7 days before the course start date
Once registered you will receive an automatic email confirmation of your place, within 24 hours. You will be contacted 1 - 2 week's before the start date with information detailing how to register on the course website. Places are limited so book early! Registration is now available for the next presentation.
Please read the Terms & Conditions before registering for a course
Prebook by paying a deposit of £250 and the remainder just before the course start date (7days) using the Pay Balance button or to pay in full using the Buy Now option.
Once payment has been made, you will receive an email with further instructions, please check the spam folder if it does not arrive within the hour.
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