About Us…
Founder, Director & Art Teacher, Laura Truesdale at an outdoor event with Mojo Active in 2022.
Discover your inner artist.
Our Story…
Founded in 2020 by qualified art teacher Laura Truesdale, Brushstrokes Courses Ltd helps artists learn skills to create their masterpiece. Laura provides art instruction and courses to build creative confidence in a variety of artistic skills, from drawing to painting. Students are given individual support and taught best practices while remaining encouraged to explore their own artistic identity.
Each Brushstrokes course is designed to accommodate, grow, and challenge artists at every level. Beginners will enjoy Laura’s encouragement and fun teaching style. Intermediate students will be challenged to push themselves. Established artists will find new inspiration or engage with a range of mediums to round their craft. Each week’s lessons build on the week prior, creating habits and artistic tools that will stick for life.
Free from institutional restraints, Brushstrokes puts student wellbeing back at the heart of the classes. Laura draws on her background in social work, PGCE training, and over a decade of teaching experience to ensure students are supported. If you want to learn the history of art, the context of a piece of work, build your creative confidence, develop technical skill, brush up on your existing skills, or be inspired, then Brushstrokes Courses is for you.
Laura gained her BA in Art from the University of Reading in 2013 and went onto to achieve her PGCE in Secondary School Art Teaching in 2016. Since receiving Qualified Teacher Status in 2017, she has taught in the local community, before establishing Brushstrokes Courses Ltd in January 2020.
Brushstrokes ran it’s first course on the theme of ‘Portraiture’ in the local community, Pangbourne, Berkshire in February 2020. Due to Coivd-19 restrictions, Brushstrokes created online art courses in August 2020 and relocated to Bristol, UK. Since then, Brushstrokes Courses continues to run online courses, live online 1:1 Tuition and in-person community classes in and around Bristol..
September 2022 saw Brushstrokes establish Thursday evening adult classes at the non-profit charity owned venue at The Kingswood Estate, run by The Creative Youth Network. In January 2023, Brushstrokes Courses opened it’s doors to daytime artists at Winterbourne Down to continue the creative community set up by Love Art Classes following founder Tracy’s retirement.
Events…
In April & June 2021, Brushstrokes worked with The Little Greene Paint Company LTD & UP Public Relations to run four creative online press release in celebration of The Little Greene Paint Company’s new colour selection. In June 2021, founder Laura Truesdale, gave a talk for YTKO on ‘Turning A Career into a Passion.’ Brushstrokes Courses has also held workshops for Barnardo’s Refugee Program, encouraging Young People to find their creative voice. Laura has also run multiple corporate team building workshops with a creative twist, both online & on location for local Bristol businesses including, Mojo Active Ltd outdoor event company.
In 2024, Brushstrokes started a collaborative ‘Wine and Paint Night’ with Avery’s Wine Merchants in the heart of Bristol. Set in an 18th Century wine cellar, this collaboration sees Sommeliers pair wines & cheese, whilst Laura navigates participants through am acrylic painting. Wine, Cheese, Paint, History, what’s really not to love? To see our next Sip & Paint night in Bristol, head to the bottom of our home page.
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“I can not fault your teaching, your planning, your use of subject and the way you built on skills from one week to the next. Your course has taught me a lot and how to work with materials. I will definitely use these skills in the future.”
— Barbara.