Welcome to the first Atelier Journal.

Atelier Masterclass was created around a simple idea: the work surrounding a painting matters too — the thinking, preparation, experiments, mistakes, discoveries, materials, conversations and decisions that eventually lead to the finished piece.

The Atelier Journal is a place to share that wider story.

It won’t simply be a newsletter about Atelier Masterclass. Over time, it can become a varied and useful collection of contributions from artists, students, tutors, educators and other creative people at every stage of their practice.

You might find a painter sharing the story behind a new work, a tutor explaining an exercise they use with a class, or a student describing something they have just discovered for the first time.

There may be works in progress, studio notes, painting demonstrations, material experiments, colour discoveries, sketchbook pages, exhibition news, artist interviews, teaching ideas, historical techniques, book recommendations, creative challenges, useful resources and behind-the-scenes glimpses into different studios and ways of working.

It can also be a place for the parts of creative practice that rarely make it onto a finished gallery page: paintings that went wrong and what they taught us, experiments worth trying, questions we are still trying to answer, changes in direction, unusual working methods and those small breakthroughs that can completely change the way we approach our work.

For educators, the Journal can provide a space to share lesson ideas, class projects, demonstrations, student achievements, teaching approaches and opportunities for other artists or learners.

For artists, it can be somewhere to announce new work, exhibitions, open studios, workshops, courses, commissions, collaborations or simply something happening in the studio that might interest somebody else.

And it does not need to belong to one particular kind of artist.

Oil, acrylic, watercolour, gouache, drawing, mixed media and other traditional practices all have a place here. So do professionals, hobbyists, complete beginners, experienced teachers and people returning to art after many years away.

Most importantly, the Journal should remain useful.

Not everything has to be polished, profound or promotional. Sometimes a photograph of a palette accompanied by an explanation of how a difficult colour was mixed may be more valuable to another painter than a perfectly finished article.

As Atelier grows, I would like the Journal to grow with it — eventually reflecting not just what is happening inside Atelier Masterclass, but what is happening inside the studios of the people who use it.

So this first entry is really an invitation.

Share what you are working on. Share something you have learned. Teach something. Ask something. Show an experiment. Introduce your studio. Celebrate a student. Tell the story behind a painting. Recommend something worth discovering.

There should always be room for another way of making art.

Welcome to the Atelier Journal.