The course begins with colour exercises building to a full palette oil portrait using a portrait model over three days, located on the Severn Estuary in Portishead.

Wendy Barratt is an artist who is fascinated with representing the human – both in portraiture and life drawing. Her portraiture is made primarily in oil paint whereas life drawing becomes an experiment in mostly dry media.

She studied graphic design in Manchester back in the early 80’s and has been working ever since as a designer… up until recently when she launched herself as a full-time artist. Throughout her career, she has spent a lot of her spare time in the life room honing her artistic skills as well as passing on her love of drawing and painting onto others through teaching.

​Taking inspiration from people whom she draws in the life room, people encountered both in real life and through found images, Wendy’s portraiture is led by the shapes and connections she sees in her subjects as well as the emotion, expression and human connection between artist and sitter.

​The early days of her career as an artist have seen her paintings accepted for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition for 3 years running as well as being selected for the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Awards exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She was elected a member of the Contemporary British Portrait Painters in early 2024. She is also the winner of Sky Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 Series (10) and her winning commission of Dame Jane Goodall now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

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This will be Wendy’s first time teaching in Portishead but Ian Price has hosted and run art courses here successfully for over a decade.

Course dates:-

• Friday 27th – Sunday 29th of March 2026. A single model for exercises and the final long pose.

The course day runs from 10.00am to 4.00pm.

The prices for the 2026 course is £400 for three days.

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Further schedule and location details are included below.

If you are interested or want to be added to the waiting list, then please email me using the contact box at the end of this page.

Note that previous experience of painting portraits or lifeclass studies in oil paint is a pre-requisite to getting the most from the course.

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Some feedback from previous portrait courses at the same venue…

“I have been on one or two courses previously.This was the best by some distance.”
“I felt like I learned more in 3 days than I did in 3 years at college”
“liked the venue a lot, partly because of it’s location by the estuary and the curlew accompaniment”
“cakes were stunning even though I shouldn’t eat cake”

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Location – Portishead Yacht School Clubhouse link

A beautiful location overlooking the Severn, free parking on Belton Rd, park at end by coast, the Clubhouse is down a short path to the right. Postcode for sat nav BS20 8DR

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Material List

• A3 or A2 oil painting paper,
• 1 stretched canvas or canvas board e.g. 16 x 20 inch. Staining the canvas with a neutral mid-tone colour would be helpful, e.g. blue/brown mix solvent thinned stain,
• Odourless solvent (e.g. Sansodor or Zest-it) do not bring Turpentine,
• Refined linseed oil or ready made painting medium,
• Lidded dipper or lidded jar for solvent,
• Palette knives,
• Large palette or tear off palette, must be flat and at least A3 in size,
• Rags or kitchen roll etc,
• An apron or old shirt to protect your clothing and disposable gloves if you are sensitive to the paint or solvent,
• A range of brushes including some Hog Hair brushes (or synthetic equivalents) and soft synthetic flats, filberts and rounds of varying sizes, one big flat brush (at least 1 inch) and a small round soft brush or rigger for drawing in paint,
• Artist’s or good student quality oil paints:-
  • Titanium White.
  • Lemon Yellow (or Cadmium Lemon),
  • Yellow Ochre,
  • Cadmium Red,
  • Alizarin Crimson or Alizarin Claret,
  • French Ultramarine Blue,
  • Burnt Sienna,
  • Burnt Umber or Raw Umber
  • Cerulean Blue (or hue) optional,

Don’t forget artist’s quality paint goes a long way so 40ml tubes are fine unless you know you’re going to be very productive, get a large 200ml white tube. It’s not critical that you have all these exact colours as there will be some leeway and you’ll be able to have a paint squirt from someone if needed. Please don’t bring multipack oil tubes e.g. from a German supermarket, they don’t work well.

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Tea and coffee will be provided. A fridge is available to store food for lunch in during the course and is more sociable then nipping to the shops for a sandwich each day.

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