Leisure Painter

Leisure Painter - the number one learn-to-paint magazine featuring practical painting and drawing features from top art tutors. Includes step-by-step tuition and easy-to-follow advice on how to draw and paint.

Editor’s welcome

Leisure Painter

Murals reMastered • The National Gallery has announced Murals reMastered, a bold nationwide collaboration with Global Street Art that will see some of the world’s greatest paintings transformed into monumental murals in streets, neighbourhoods and unexpected public spaces across the UK

Spotlight on art • A round-up of events and ideas to enjoy live and online

In the quiet moment • Rooted in a deep respect for nature and shaped by years of self-taught practice, Annie Drew creates strikingly realistic animal portraits that capture something more elusive than movement - a moment of connection

New perspective • Joy Jewell, winner of The Painters Online award at Sketch for Survival 2025, chats to us about her rapidly developing practice using digital art to create pet and wildlife portraits

Creating pet portraits with confidence • Marilyn Allis shows us how we can all create successful pet portraits with planning and a little bit of confidence

Portraits of Influence • Join us in congratulating Marjorie Firth as the winner of our Portraits of Influence Studio Members Challenge

WILD AT HEART • With bold colour, instinctive mark-making and a deep respect for her subjects, wildlife artist Sarah Taylor transforms animal portraiture into something unmistakably her own

Anemones • A loose, expressive watercolour study of anemones that explores colour layering, fluid washes, and organic composition.

Light & atmosphere • Becky Thorley-Fox talks us through her passion of painting shoreline birds and how they have shaped her art

Watercolour dragonfly • Discover how to transform a simple dragonfly sketch into a luminous, jewel-like watercolour by combining delicate masking techniques, glowing glazes and expressive wet-into-wet colour

Community & support • Tim O’Brien shares his experiences of belonging to a group of like-minded creative people and the benefits art societies and clubs can bring to individual artists

Q&A Fixing 5 common mistakes when drawing animals • Whether you prefer long or short fur, scales or feathers, animals are wonderful subjects to draw in any style. But if you are struggling to make them come to life, these solutions to 5 common mistakes, from Helen Carter, will help

A friendship painted in watercolour • Some businesses are built on strategy. Others are built on spreadsheets. Animoo Art? It’s built on a 30-year friendship, a kitchen table and a shared sense of humour

Art clubs • Over to you for the latest news on your club exhibitions and activities

Art club challenge • In celebration of this animal themed edition, we asked you to share your paintings and drawings.

THE ART WORLD • NEWS, INFORMATION AND ONLINE EVENTS IN THE ART WORLD

Dear Diary • Join us as we sneak a peak into the diary of an artist.

Centre stage • We raise the curtain on Actor Rebecca Grant’s de Longueuil’s dual careers as a painter and performer

Coastal scenery & the landscape painter • Robert Brindley discusses the attraction of painting coastal scenery and how to capture it using oils

Painting the quiet spirit of animals • Blending observation with intuition, Charlotte Strawbridge explores how painting wildlife becomes a deeply personal practice, one that captures not just the form of foxes, owls, and hares, but their presence, energy and the subtle emotional connections they awaken

Abstraction, colour & spontaneity • Caroline Saunders talks to Rowena Comrie about her pursuit...