RECORDED ZOOM INTENSIVE WITH HAZEL SOAN
Living Watercolor: Animals and Figures That Come Alive
Your paintings look right and still sit flat. Hazel builds form the other way round: light and shade first, detail last. Five complete paintings across four recorded sessions. Follow along at your own pace and return to the recordings whenever you need.
Full recordings of all 4 sessions · 5 paintings · Lifetime access · Subtitles in 6 languages
At a Glance
Hazel Soan · Work in the National Portrait Gallery, the Ritz, the BBC · Art Expert on Channel 4's Watercolour Challenge · 25+ solo exhibitions
"It moves on the paper, which means you cannot entirely dictate your own terms."
Large shapes wet into wet, strong darks and clean lights from a limited palette, texture only after form. That order holds whether you paint a zebra, a face, or a field of horses at full gallop.
Is This Intensive Right For You?
Animals and figures are the subjects most watercolor painters avoid. Not because they are harder, but because everyone attacks them with drawing, and watercolor does not reward that.
The shapes are right, the color is right, and it still sits on the paper. You added detail and it got worse. What you need is tonal structure.
With your own photo in front of you, nothing transfers. Hazel names the decision as she makes it, so you leave with the principle, not the picture.
You measure, you outline, you get careful, and the painting dies before the second wash. Watching someone commit to large shapes changes how you start.
You reach a good painting and keep going. Knowing where to put the brush down is a teaching point, not a matter of luck.
New subjects, same system, harder ground: a leopard's markings, a figure held together by shadow, a group in motion.
Hazel's Method
She has written a whole book on the limited palette. Fewer colors mean stronger darks, cleaner lights, and one less decision to make while the paper is still wet.
She says the reason out loud while the brush is moving. Why this value now, why this edge stays soft, why she leaves that patch alone. Nothing is explained after the fact over a finished painting.
The Four Recordings
One principle per session, five paintings, each session building on the one before.
Session 1. Form through Line and through Light and Shade
Two subjects, two ways of building form. On the zebra, line carries the structure and the stripes arrive with the brush. On the pair of rhinoceros, light and shade do the work instead, and you see the difference in your own hand.
Two paintings · Full recording · 2 h 40 min
Session 2. Form first, texture second
A leopard. Form comes first, the spots and rosettes are surface markings and are only added after the form has been established. They arrive through brush marks and endorse the form already in place.
One painting · Full recording · 2 h 30 min
Session 3. Shadow builds the figure
A Maasai askari in a red cloak. Shadow creates form, so anatomy stops being the obstacle. Gesture over accuracy. Opaque pigment for brightness. This session names when to stop.
One painting · Full recording · 2 h 30 min
Session 4. Implying movement
Race horses and jockeys at speed. Dynamic composition, and the shapes of the gaps between legs, arms and bodies. Everything from the first three sessions combined.
One painting · Full recording · 2 h 50 min
What You Will Paint
A zebra, a pair of rhinoceros, a leopard, a figure in motion, and horses at full gallop. Five works, one tonal logic.
These are the paintings Hazel completed in the sessions. You watch every one of them built from the first wash to the final stroke.
Your Instructor: Hazel Soan
"The beauty of painting is that moment when I get carried away."
- Author of more than 15 books on watercolor, published by HarperCollins and Batsford
- Art Expert on Channel 4's Watercolour Challenge and presenter of her own series, Splash of Colour, on Anglia TV
- Work held by the National Portrait Gallery, the BBC, the Ritz and the British Embassy in Ankara
- More than 25 solo exhibitions, from London to Namibia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe
- Studios in London and Cape Town, with a month on safari in Africa every year
What You Will Take Away
Five finished works
A zebra, a pair of rhinoceros, a leopard, a figure in a red cloak, and a field of horses at full gallop.
A sequence you can repeat on your own photographs
Read the tone, build the form, add texture last. A sequence you can take straight to your own reference photos.
Animals without anatomy
Shadow does the work. You stop needing to know how the shoulder joint moves.
Texture that reads from across the room
Stripes, spots, fur and folds, all built with the brush, none of them drawn in.
Movement without blur
The gaps between legs, arms and bodies, and why they carry the speed. The reason some action scenes look painted and others look posed.
Lifetime access to all four recordings
Watch at your own pace, pause on any brushstroke and come back whenever you need. Subtitles in 6 languages.
Student Results
From painters who took Hazel's previous Intensive with Artefacto
GET THE RECORDINGS
Plan
Recording
- Full recordings of all 4 Zoom sessions
- Lifetime access to all recordings — rewatch anytime
- 5 complete painting demonstrations
Plan
Recording
- Full recordings of all 4 Zoom sessions
- Lifetime access to all recordings — rewatch anytime
- 5 complete painting demonstrations
Before You Decide
Afraid you will fall behind?
Not with a recording. Pause on any brushstroke, rewind any decision and paint at your own speed.
Bought courses before and never finished them?
Four sessions, five paintings, no deadline. Watch one a week or all four over a weekend. The recordings wait for you.
Not sure your level is right?
Every session comes with Hazel’s reference photos and a short “Before You Paint” brief: what to sketch lightly in pencil and what to leave for the brush. Prepare your outline, press play and paint alongside her.
Materials
Hazel works from a limited palette, so the list is short.
Equivalents from other brands work, so you can start with what you already have.
Paper. Saunders Waterford or Arches, 100% cotton, 300gsm or heavier, rough or cold pressed, up to 16 inches high.
Paint. Schmincke Horadam artist quality, pans or tubes. Ultramarine Finest green shade and Prussian Blue. Indian Yellow and Aureolin. Cadmium Red or Vermillion, Permanent Rose, Alizarin Crimson. Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Red Ochre. Violet and Transparent Orange.
Brushes. Natural hair rounds in sizes 6, 8 and 10, a 20mm flat, a rigger and a reservoir brush.
Three water pots, and masking fluid for the final session.
The full materials list is in your training area right after purchase.
Hazel works from a limited palette, so the list is short. Equivalents from other brands work, so you can start with what you already have.
Paper. Saunders Waterford or Arches, 100% cotton, 300gsm or heavier, rough or cold pressed, up to 16 inches high.
Paint. Schmincke Horadam artist quality, pans or tubes. Ultramarine Finest green shade and Prussian Blue. Indian Yellow and Aureolin. Cadmium Red or Vermillion, Permanent Rose, Alizarin Crimson. Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Red Ochre. Violet and Transparent Orange.
Brushes. Natural hair rounds in sizes 6, 8 and 10, a 20mm flat, a rigger and a reservoir brush.
Three water pots, and masking fluid for the final session.
The full materials list is in your training area right after purchase.
FAQ
Still have questions?
Not sure this Intensive is right for you? Just reach out — we'll guide you in a few minutes.
Contact us
There is a moment in every one of Hazel's paintings where the animal stops being paint. Nothing was labored over, nothing was filled in. The shadow landed in the right place and the thing came alive.
That moment is not talent. It is a sequence, and you can watch it happen four times, pause on it, and watch it again.
4 complete sessions · 5 paintings · Full recordings · Lifetime access