Home Workshops, Courses and Talks

Spring & Summer Term: Thursdays, 11 April - 16 May & 30 May - 4 July | 6.30 - 8.30pm

£330 for 12 weeks | Friends £297  

Foyle Pottery Studio | Pre-booking required | Led by Joshua Schoeman

Experiment with hand-building, wheel throwing and surface decoration techniques in our specialist Foyle Pottery Studio. Build your confidence in working with clay and learn more about ceramics with our expert tutor. 

Drawing

Spring & Summer Term: Thursdays, 11 April - 16 May & 30 May - 4 July | 6.30 - 8.30pm

£330 for 12 weeks | Friends £297

Main Gallery | Pre-booking required | Led by Jane Allison

Using our historic galleries and gardens for inspiration, develop skills in drawing using a variety of materials. The course will include opportunities to draw from life models, with guidance from Jane, a professional portrait painter.

Thursdays 6.30 - 8.30pm
Winter Term: 17 January – 14 February & 28 February – 28 March
£300 | Friends £270
Led by Jane Allison | Pre-booking required

Join us for a term for our Drawing courses. Classes take place in the historic galleries and studios, and are suitable for beginners and improvers.

The collections and exhibitions are used to inspire and to learn technical drawing skills. There are opportunities to work from a life model across the term.

Materials and tea/coffee included. Spaces are limited and must be pre-booked.

Wednesday 15 May | 7pm | £12.50 Friends £11.25

Watts Gallery | Age 13+

Alexander Creswell is an internationally celebrated artist known for his fluency and technical skill in watercolour. Creswell’s paintings combine subtle colouring and skillful draughtsmanship with a deep reverence for natural light. Travel is an essential part of Creswell’s work and his current Watts Contemporary exhibition, Journeys in the Holy Land, is a celebration of his recent trips to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. This evening will provide an insight into these journeys and the astonishing watercolour paintings Creswell went on to produce, which are now on display and for sale in the exhibition.

Watts Contemporary Gallery will be open before and after the talk.

Mondays, 13 May, 20 May, 3 June, 10 June & 17 June | 11am - 1pm

£170 | Friends £153

Temporary exhibition | Pre-booking required

Moonscapes examines Victorian ideas of the Moon in science, myth and art. Study these ideas in more depth in this course and explore their longer history in our culture.

Monday 13 May
Introduction to Moonlit Landscape Painting in Britain
Dr Tessa Kilgarriff 

Monday 20 May
View of the Moon: A Science Perspective
Professor Craig Underwood

Monday 3 June
Image of the Scientist
Hilary Underwood

Monday 10 June
Moon Art: From the Medieval to the Impressionist 
Hilary Underwood

Monday 17 June
From Surrey to Space: John Russell and his Inheritors 
Olive Maggs & Nerissa Taysom

In collaboration with Surrey Space Centre.

Friday 14 June | 11am - 4pm | £10

Clore Learning Studio | Pre-booking required

Whether you’re an artist or a cultural organisation, join us to hear case studies and receive advice on developing creative partnerships between museums, galleries and artists.

Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village was the home of G F and Mary Watts, two significant 19th-century British artists who established an artistic community in Compton, Surrey and helped to cultivate creative skills and enterprise to regenerate local communities. Watts Gallery was the first gallery built to house and display the work of a single artist. Today the Wattses’ home is part of the international Artist’s Studio Museum Network and continues to offer opportunities for artists to engage in residencies and creative collaborations.

This day-long seminar is open to anyone interested in setting up an Artist in Residence programme, or who would like to find out more about working with artists in museums and other cultural settings. Meet inspiring artists and practitioners and share practical tips for building partnerships.

Saturday 11 May | 10am - 5pm | £90 | Friends £81

 Foyle Pottery Studio | Pre-booking required | Led by Jose Carvalho

Moon jars are traditional Korean porcelain ceramic vessels, so called because of their shape and milky glaze. Join potter Jose Carvalho in this day-long workshop exploring the history and techniques of the Moon Jar, learn more by hand-building in terracotta before moving on to glaze and decorate a bespoke, hand-thrown porcelain Moon Jar to keep.

Saturday 27 April & Friday 24 May | 11am - 4pm | £75 | Friends £62.50

Clore Learning Studio | Pre-booking required | Led by James Cockerill

Discover the beauty of silk-screen printing with HALTglass founder and artist, James Cockerill. Sketch, design and layer images of the Moon before printing onto mouth-blown antique glass. Each participant will also make their own walnut display stand for their finished moons.

Wednesday 17 April | 7pm | £12.50 | Friends £11.25

Watts Gallery | Age 13+

Art historian Dr Alexandra Loske and astronomer Robert Massey discuss their new book, Moon: Art, Science, Culture. Taking us on a beautiful and visionary journey through their writing, this talk will explore our endless fascination with the Moon, weaving together artistic, religious, scientific and political interpretations drawn from across history and time. 

This talk will include a book signing.

Wednesday 1 May | 6pm | £15 | Friends £13.50

Please note that this event takes place at the Surrey Space Centre | Age 13+

The University of Surrey and its spin-out, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), are world leaders in the design, construction and operation of micro nano-satellites. Soon, such spacecrafts will be exploring the Moon and the solar system beyond. Join Professor Craig Underwood for a unique insight into Surrey’s pioneering role in these developments. The talk will be followed by a tour of the Space Centre.

The Sky at Night

Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Saturday 25 May | 7pm | £15 | Friends £13.50

Watts Gallery | Age 13+

Please note that this is a separate ticketed event as part of Watts Late: To the Moon & Back.

The Moon has fascinated humankind since the beginning of history - but far from being a mere rock out in space, it has phenomenal power over the earth, creating great waves, dictating the length of the day and perhaps even playing a role in the creation of life on Earth. It is certainly a key player in the story of our fragile planet, but how well do we know our closest neighbour?

Co-presenter of The Sky at Night, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes readers on a journey through the Moon’s past, present and ultimate future.

This talk will include a book signing.

Wednesday 12 June | 7pm | £12.50 | Friends £11.25

Watts Gallery | Age 16+

For Shakespeare, the moon might be quick, slow, unlucky, chaste, watery, funny, or angry, but above all it (or she) was variable. Drawing inspiration from the Moonscapes exhibition, writer Dr Daniel Swift will explore some of the Moon’s appearances in Shakespeare’s plays, focusing particularly on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which the moon is worshipped as a goddess and yet also brought on-stage as a badly-dressed character. Discover how Shakespeare saw the Moon as light and dark, mortal and godlike, but always powerful and a source of fun and trouble.

Thursdays, 10.30am - 12pm | £5 per session | Carers go free 

Foyle Pottery Studio & Clore Learning Studio | Pre-booking required

Art activities, conversation and coffee sessions for people living with dementia.

Artist and gallery educators facilitate these weekly sessions for individuals living with early- to mid-stages of dementia and their carers, friends and family members.

All sessions start with tea and coffee.

Thursday 2 May

Colour: A stroll around Watts Studios thinking about colour. Make your own watercolor postcards.

Thursday 9 May

Shape: A handling session of Compton Pottery ceramics, thinking about shape. Get your hands messy and make your own Compton-inspired pottery.

Thursday 16 May

Design: See Mary Watts’s pelican rug design and make a collage inspired by the lines and colours.

Thursday 23 May

Pattern: Explore the De Morgan Collection, thinking about pattern, followed by a relief printing workshop.