Watercolour Flowers Workshop (11 April 2026)
Watercolour Flowers Workshop with Ingrid Bartkowiak
10–1pm Saturday 11 April 2026.
Discover the art of capturing Australian native flora through watercolour techniques in this 3-hour introductory session led by accomplished artist Ingrid Bartkowiak.
Experience the alchemy of watercolour painting, from activating paint with water, observing how watercolour moves through paper, and waving flowers into life with your brush. This watercolour workshop is perfect for beginners seeking to develop foundational skills in watercolour painting, through to advanced students who would like to refine their skills by studying Ingrid's techniques.
To start, Ingrid will guide you through the basics of using watercolour paints, paper and brushes. You will learn how to activate your colours using water and how to mix colours, and how to layer colours to change tones and intensity. Ingrid will demonstrate how to bring these elements together to achieve different results, with a focus on the particular techniques that you'll be using in this workshop. Next, it's your turn to practice your skills by creating gradients, brush strokes and colour mixing.
We'll start by painting a bottle brush flower working on A5 watercolour paper. First, we will break down the flower by looking at the shapes and colours we see, what brush strokes we can use to create our illustration, and then we put it all together to create our flower.
Ingrid will then demonstrate how you could approach other flora such as wattle, gum blossoms, ferns or any special requests you may have. Ingrid will also demonstrate how to approach background colours, which can be completed when you take your artworks home. Depending on your pace, you may want to keep focusing on your bottle brush, start a second artwork to try out another type of flower, or add in some extra variety to the background of your bottle brush painting.
Materials
All the materials required for the workshop will be provided. Please wear an apron if you are worried about staining your clothes.
Who Should Attend?
This workshop is suitable for beginners with little or no experience, and more advanced students who would like to learn from Ingrid and develop their watercolour knowledge and techniques.
About Ingrid Bartkowiak
Ingrid Bartkowiak is a Brisbane-based artist and illustrator who paints Australian native flora, fauna and fungi using watercolour. Ingrid's work celebrates all things small and intricate, from tufts of moss on a footpath to the fungi sprouting from a wombat dropping. Her distinctive style is inspired by botanical illustration and the Arts and Crafts movement through its use of tiny patterns, exquisite detail, and vivid blocks of colour.
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Cost
$120 / $108 (Frequent workshoppers)
Frequent workshopper discount: Sign up for 2 or more Plant Empire workshops, or register 2 or more people for the same workshop, to receive 10% off the total registration price (discount will appear at checkout).
Location
Plant Empire has moved! This workshop will be held at our new premises in Tennyson, Brisbane: 15/55 Lofter St, Tennyson Q 4105.
Accessibility
In our new premises, we have ground floor workshop spaces as well as mezzanine level spaces with stairs. The ground floor spaces are all level without any steps, while the mezzanines are accessible via a staircase with 22 steps and 1–2 landings. Please let us know if you have any mobility issues that would limit your access to the mezzanine spaces so that we can ensure that your workshop is located at ground level by adding a note in the special instructions field when you register for your workshop: for example, "no stairs" or similar.
Reminders
You have full control over how (and how often) you receive reminders for our events. You will receive one email confirmation from us when you purchase your workshop registration; but we won't send any further email reminders, so please ensure that you have the workshop details in your diary. You can also use the "add to calendar" function in our events calendar to add workshops to your digital calendar and customise your reminder preferences.
Cancellation Policy
Please choose carefully before registering for this workshop as we do not offer refunds on event bookings. If you need to cancel your place up to 24 hours before the workshop, we will provide you with a voucher that you can use to attend a future workshop or any other purchase at Plant Empire. We regret that we are unable to provide vouchers for cancellations made within 24 hours of the workshop.
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