Intro to Watercolor Painting
Sat, Aug. 1 | 9am | Set Price

Watercolor has a reputation for being unforgiving. It can feel slightly out of your control.
That’s not a bug. It’s what makes it worth learning.
In this workshop, Dayna Walton of Solstice Handmade brings her watercolor skills to one of the best possible subjects: the flowers and plants right here at Winding Stair Gardens.
The class builds in three stages, each one setting up the next..

In this class, you’ll cover:
- A technique warmup focused on value, brushstroke, and blending, the foundational moves that make everything else possible
- Color mixing from just three primary colors, learning to pull the vivid, complex shades found in native flowers without a shelf full of tubes
- Observational painting from real plants and flowers sourced from the Gardens, practicing how to sketch plant forms, match colors to what you actually see, and capture the kind of light and depth that makes a painting feel alive

No experience required, and no supplies needed. Everything is provided for use during class. Whether you’ve never picked up a brush or you’re coming back to painting after years away, this workshop meets you where you are.
You’ll leave with finished work, a few new tools for seeing color differently, and a much friendlier relationship with watercolor than most people expect to find.

Dayna Walton is a WNC-based illustrator, printmaker, and naturalist whose work under the Solstice Handmade label celebrates the overlooked corners of the natural world, from slime molds and lichens to the insects most people walk right past. A former Artist-in-Residence at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, she has spent years hiking, sketching, and learning the ecology of the Blue Ridge, and brings that same close attention to her teaching.