Course Feedback - Botanical and Natural History 12 month Painting Course tutored by Simon Williams

2024 - 2025

Many years ago, I met Simon who tutored a weekend art course for beginners in watercolour. This opened up a complete new world to me, spending a weekend learning how to observe and paint the finer details of a leaf! I can honestly say that Simon was the inspiration into my love of botanical art.
Work and family commitments limited the time I could devote to developing my skills, but now semi-retired, I jumped at the opportunity of enrolling on Simons' course. What a privilege it has been to have the opportunity of being tutored by such an exceptional botanical artist! The 6 projects focused on different aspects of botanical art and mediums, but were adaptable to my own preferences. Teamed with the excellent 1-1 guidance from Simon, through his emails, zoom sessions with the use of Photoshop and detailed critiques of my art, I am immensely pleased to have been given the unique opportunity to achieve my goals. Simon was always there for me, with his friendly, relaxed nature, he has the perfect qualities to discuss artwork with thoughtful consideration, enabling me to take my skills to the next level. Simons' outstanding guidance gave me the confidence to produce artwork that I had only dreamed of creating. I have now extended my goals to be accepted as a fellow member of the Society of Botanical Artists and have enrolled on Simons' new Advanced Course and I can't wait to start it! Written by Janette

2023 - 2024

I really like and admire Simons' work, gaining inspiration and motivation from his varied impactful portrayals of the Natural Botanical world. Simons' paintings build engaging pathways in nature and introduce the viewer to studies from entomology, ornithology and mammals. This is why I would highly recommend enrolling onto Simons' course as you have a unique opportunity to be tutored by a highly acclaimed professional Botanical artist who specialises in both flora and fauna. I very much enjoyed following a well-designed course structure contained in six investigative creative projects over a period of twelve months. You can choose to work in either watercolour or gouache; I chose to paint using watercolour and to have a professional Botanical Artist as a tutor who is an expert in both mediums, I feel is very rare and extremely helpful to you as a student. Each project has an instructive title, project deadline date, an introductory explanation of the aims of the project and suggested instructions on how to prepare, manage and to bring your project to conclusion. Receiving personalised online consultation sessions, being shown and encouraged to enjoy and have fun in your painting along with timely prompts to ensure that you are continuing to maintain good art practises is truly fantastic.

The one-to-one support you receive is unquestionably exceptional.
I am extremely happy I enrolled onto Simons' course, I had been searching for botanical inspiration and knew I needed encouragement with my artistic practise. Now that I have successfully completed Simons' course, and received my certificate I go forward as an Botanical artist with confidence and a stable foundation of artistic techniques and skill set.
Click here to read the full version written by Carolann



2022 - 2023

"So the Project 6 is finished now. I cannot believe that I am at the end of my 1 year course with Simon. It was a challenging year with amazing experience. Looking at my pictures of one year ago I can see a big difference. I definitely improved my painting skills and have much more confidence with each stroke of the brush. I appreciated all of Simon's professional advice and big patience working with me. Even for an online course Simon managed to create a relaxing, creative and enjoyable atmosphere. Emails and our zoom meetings gave me a lot of inspiration to go forward with my projects. I really enjoyed a 3 days course in North Wales at Plas Tan y Bwlch which was an additional tutored course. I liked that Simon helped people to find their own style, it’s priceless. I would love to attend more of Simon's tutored courses in the future. Please keep me updated."

"I would like to thank you for the amazing experience of this year. Inessa


Having not had the benefit of attending my usual tutoring courses during the Covid period I was intrigued when I saw a course being advertised in The South West Botanical Society’s magazine ‘Palette and Petal’ during 2022.

Simon Williams was offering a Botanical and Natural History Painting Course, based on 6 modules, over 12 months. Working at home was an ideal way in which to immerse myself in a new course. The guidance document explained the objectives of each project and therefore starts by refreshing drawing and observational skills. Each project introduces something new until finally Project 6 should encompass producing the photos, drawings, research, colour swatches, practice pieces and the final painting.

Each module submitted to Simon was returned with a detailed written assessment and sometimes with a copy of my work that he had then used to show a correction. These examples offered me the opportunity to correct my own original work if I wished. I found Simon’s written observations to be accurate and he called my attention to some techniques that were new to me, for example the additional shading needed to demonstrate the curvature of the bulbous root of the Arum Maculatum.

On the completion of the course I felt that I had gained a much broader range of experience and knowledge and also a more disciplined approach in collecting together the information and practice pieces prior to embarking upon the final painting. Simon’s papers, which I have carefully filed, remain an invaluable trove of knowledge and ideas.
Dorne Cornelius MA