Teaching you to paint…

It’s a weird thing when a hobby becomes your job… Not just for the obvious reasons, the pressure and financial strain, all that responsibility and of course the hours where you don’t feel up to “hobbying” but don’t have a choice, because its also your job. I think all of that is pretty surface level and I suspect most of you reading this can imagine and empathise as to what that might be like. That’s not the weird part.

The weird part is the way that your former hobby starts to infiltrate every facet of your thinking and influence how you make decisions and direct your life.

I never thought of myself as a teacher… which is funny because I’ve done the teaching course at university and I’ve worked for a college in Nottinghamshire, helping 16-24 year olds get the necessary skills to get in to work. I even had a regular class group for a while, teaching what at the time was called “key skills” - which is basically maths, English and IT, up to about a GCSE standard. But none of that is really the kinda stuff I’m truly passionate about.

Sure, I loved the aspect of helping people and I loved being able to see those little lightbulb moments for them, where something clicks and a barrier is suddenly broken down… but maths, English and IT are BORING, so when that chapter of my life was over, it was content to put it to bed and move on with the next thing.

Yet look at me now.

Taken at our Blacksun Studios class in Summer 2026

This wasn’t who I ever thought I was going to be… yet somehow here we are… and the story of this picture is the product of that exact niggle, where miniature painting started to influence every decision I made. When my dear friend James, also known as Rising Ape Minis suggested to me a couple years ago that I should have a crack at delivering a workshop, something was unlocked in me.

I thought back not to the slog of teaching boring subjects, but to the eureka moments the students would have… and as I sank in to that reverie, miniature painting swirled in to the mix and I began to imagine what a situation might feel like, where I could potentially give that to someone in their hobby journey.

That alone was the motivator. I mean sure, classes are good money. A full day workshop makes me the same money as a two to three day commission job usually, because simply put… quality teaching is a rarer skill, so it demands a higher price tag. Buuuut classes also come with the necessity to travel, which means fuel, eating out, accommodation… honestly some of the classes we run don’t push much past breaking even, so there really HAS to be a greater motivator. Fortunately for me, that motivator appeared to me before I’d even run a single class.

Yet to be frank that’s my side of the story, and that isn’t REALLY the important part of painting classes. What matters most is what YOU get from them, because you’re the one handing over your trust, money and time to me. You’re the one to whom I have something to prove. That is exactly what I want to talk about today, my dear reader… the social contract between teacher and student, how it manifests and what it gets you, as a paying customer.

One of our students, working away at his Bel’Thor dwarf bust.

Lets begin by doing some management of expectations - I want to suggest to you what I think you should bring in to a class, and what I think you should expect to take away from it. Key to this is understanding WHAT is being taught. The majority of classes are usually skills based, with theory being used to back up the skill demonstration. That isn’t how I usually teach, so I’m going to speak from the only position on which I have absolute authority - my own teaching style.

Take a skills demonstrations as a great example - the actual showing you of how to do the thing is often a pretty short process…generally it takes about as long as it physically takes to do the thing. The theory can be added during the demo to “pad the runtime” so to speak, or it can be demonstrated separately to the technique. I usually favour a mix of the two, depending on how visually satisfying the demonstration is likely to be. Regardless however, of which way its delivered, your teacher cannot do the grinding for you.

Even if you THINK you’ve perfectly copied the teacher’s every stroke, used all the same colours and equipment etc, you still might get a different result. That result often looks, to you at least, worse than the example, and it can make you question why you came to the class if the instruction isn’t going to give you instant results. The answer is the grind. Your teacher didn’t learn how to demonstrate these skills overnight… they spent years developing the skill and then a bunch more time on top, learning how to teach it. The class is there to set you on what the teacher sees as the right path, but you’re still the only one who can walk it. You have to get those reps in, make it feel natural, experiment with what works for you, learn to understand how different paints or tools might have an effect on the results. None of that can be given to you, unless you plan to spend literal years in a classroom!

Similarly with theory - whilst the fundamental rules through which colour, light, volume etc all function ARE set in stone, how they’re interpreted, discriminated between and applied varies wildly from teacher to teacher. I like to teach fundamental theory in a very creative way. I like to encourage learning through play, experimentation and “failing upward”. That means that when you take notes on the things I tell you about theory, and then take them home and start following them… they might not do much for you at first. The idea is, again, that they set you up in a position to grow your understanding instinctively and over time.

Wide shot of the classroom during a lesson

When you come in to my classroom, I ask that you bring an open mind, and a willingness to be challenged. I ask that you make yourself artistically vulnerable, by experimenting, taking risks and playing with your food, until it tastes good. I consider my role as a teacher to be a failure, if you think you’re leaving with a concrete, monolithic understanding of any subject we’ve discussed. What I hope instead is that you’ll leave with a sense of wonder and a desire to explore and find your identity as an artist.

That to me is what going to a class is all about. I don’t want to make you paint like me, I want to make you paint like YOU. I want my tuition to give you the confidence to choose colours, techniques, lighting, mood and vibes that fit with YOUR vision, and I want to help you to be able to create that vision and then create the art that comes from it. This is exactly why I don’t really tend to market my classes as being for a specific “level” of painter - because what I’m trying to send you away with should be helpful whether you’re less, equally or even more experienced than I am. I used to get really shocked when painters who I think are better than me turned up to my classes… yet when they came to speak to me afterwards it would all make sense.

The universal thread that ties all artists together are those blocks, walls and barriers. The frustrations where we’re out of ideas, but aren’t yet satisfied. By providing classes that thrive on interaction and exploration, I try my best to challenge that exact problem, directly. Sometimes, the last thing you need are 10 steps to success… you need that meandering, circuitous route to freedom and agency. That’s what I want you to take from a TMS class.

So with all of that said, I want to talk to you about a lovely full-circle moment in my teaching journey and something that I think is going to be really special. I mentioned earlier in the blog that my friend James got me started in all of this, by letting me run the very rudimentary and rough version of my “Level Up Your Miniatures” class at his venue, many moons ago. What I didn’t tell you is that for the entire time since then… probably a couple of years by now, we’ve been trying to book another class together and just haven’t been able to make the dates lock in… until now.

Poster for our new classes at Rising Ape

In what I can only emotionally parse as a homecoming of sorts, we’ve managed to set up not one, but TWO classes with James. This time they’re being hosted in an adorable little tea room just outside of Salisbury. Whilst the room is more intimate and therefore there’ll be fewer spaces available, the setting is gorgeous and in and of itself is inspiring. If you want to get an idea of the vibe, head here and look for yourself!

Now of course I want to talk about these classes, not only to shamelessly plug them, but because I think they really illustrate a pair of interesting and broadly diverse offerings that plug in nicely to the overall message of this blog.

Class the first is titled “The Tesseract Skill Builder Workshop”. The aim of this first one is to tune out all of the noise and just hyperfocus on HOW to actually pull things off. We won’t talk about theory any more than necessary, instead we’ll have practically minded discussions and focus on things like time, quality, motivation and focus. We’ll round table ideas, then work together as a group to realise those ideas. This is a class where we get to explore each others artistic shortcomings in a safe, judgment free zone and work together, to make all of us more capable painters.

The second class could almost be viewed as an opposite to that - it’s a deep dive in to my brain, my methodology and my reasoning, as we crash our way through a piece in very limited time, with very high hopes. We’ll take the brand new TMS academic bust - Bul’Grath Brokenjaw, and we’ll attempt to paint him from primer to polished, in a single intense day. I will of course show you HOW I painted the box art for him, but more importantly, I’ll guide you through WHY I am making each decision, to illustrate how all the puzzle pieces come together to make a successful piece in minimal time. This class uses only 9 paints, all kindly provided by Ionic for us to use. The actual box art example only took me 5 hours, so with any luck we’ll have no problems getting all the way to the end.

So from completely removing noise, to intensely focusing on methodology and reasoning, I think you can see how this weekender of workshops will really run the gamut on just what a class can contain. The classes are running on the 12th and 13th of September 2026 (that’s next month at time of writing!), so it’s worth getting your place booked sharpish. There’s tons of cute AirBNB’s nearby, as well as the venue itself offering camping options, so there’s no shortage of ways to rest your head if you want to do the whole thing.

Details, pricing and bookings are all over at James’ website: https://www.rising-ape.co.uk/event-list

As an extra incentive, as well as Ionic providing us some paints that we can use on both days (and will totally cover day 2), Bul’Grath himself is also included in the cost. He’s an event exclusive model at the moment, and even when he does eventually have his general release, it’ll be in a totally different form to what you see here, so its a special piece which currently can only be owned one way. We’ll also have some TMS brushes with us, if you want to restock and dodge the shipping fee and I’ll even be running a couple of cheeky discounts!

The group photo from the first class we ever ran with James… look how young I look!!

I would love for these classes to be a celebration of James and everything he does for the display painting community. The guy works TIRELESSLY to book and promote classes, flying in quality tutors from all over the world, in the single-minded pursuit of providing help and guidence to display painters. He gets way less rest and way less kudos than he deserves and I’d love to see that change. Also follow his Insta @risingapeminis - he’s always posting new classes and other cool stuff.

With that said though, I also want the weekend to somewhat selfishly be a celebration of TMS. Our homecoming back to the school that got us started on this journey and a chance to look at how far we’ve come. It’s been a landmark year for me as a display painter - a clean sweep of gold medals at every renowned competition I’ve entered. My graduation to Masters level at those comps. My development as a teacher, a creator of art materials and most importantly, a human pursuing the endless endeavour of self-improvement. I’m not one easily taken to celebrating myself… but this year, of all years, I feel I’ve earned it… IYKYK.

It really would mean the absolute most for you to join us for this one. I’d love to see all seats filled both days, so that we can dive in to some really fun subjects together and share some time immersed in art. I’d like to sign off this blog by thanking James for his endless endurance and passion for display painting, and for making the world a little more like how we’d all love to see it, as artists. The guy literally changed my life, I think I’m allowed to give him his dues.

Hope to see you all there.

Love,

Stu