In teaching art, Sally believes that what matters most is to help the artist along their artistic journey, developing their confidence, helping them to explore new ideas, techniques, perspectives and media. 

Her students are encouraged to experiment, take themselves outside of their “comfort zone”, to throw off the artificial constraints that so often frustrate the creative process, and thus to really enjoy both painting and their own artistic development process. 

Sally helps people to look at the world differently, whatever their preferred subject matter, to see, image and imagine things in new ways, and then explore methods to capture that vision in their art.  The learning should be liberating but also good fun: her only rule is that there are no rules! 

Sally understands from her own experience that making art can be intensely personal, and that “sharing” art as it develops can sometimes be quite challenging. For some people that will mean they will be best suited to one-on-one tuition, at least to begin with, and that is fine.

When working with groups, she actively fosters mutual support between students, trying to encourage real collaboration and the sharing of ideas, harnessing the power of collaborative creativity, and helping students to both address their perceived weaknesses and build on their creative strengths.  

This approach can work well for anyone, whether you are a professional artist, experienced amateur or new beginner, and can also help students to find trusted artistic partners, able to mentor and support each other as their ideas and art develop.

Painting is not just about subject choice, materials, skills and technique.  A big factor is about you, the artist: how you are feeling when you sit down to paint; how painting and creating makes you feel; and learning how to manage self-criticism and the comments of others constructively. 

Therefore Sally offers her students some ideas about how to gain and then use self-awareness, for example the factors affecting when to paint and for how long, how to get the best from the available time, finding the right support, and what to do when things just will not go right!

Although many of the principles Sally teaches can be applied to almost any artistic endeavour, she does not teach painting with Oil Paints.   

Sally recommends using only high-quality materials, for example the Winsor and Newton Professional range of gouache, watercolour and acrylic paints, Arches watercolour papers, linen canvases, and sable or sable mix brushes.  See Ken Bromley Art Supplies for options - that is where she buys most of her materials.  High-quality materials allow greater control, offer better coverage, provide greater consistency, ensure more depth to the colours, and more stable surfaces to work on.  

Ultimately, using better quality materials will give better results and will not limit the artist.  Therefore, when booking a course you will be offered the option to buy one or more materials packs (eg sketching, watercolour, gouache or acrylic) that will contain an appropriate range of high-quality paints, pencils or pastels, brushes, and paper, board or canvas.  Packs ordered will be available at the start of your course, and are yours to take away at the end.  You can always bring your own materials etc and compare these to others during the tuition.