About Mike Mills

ARTIST  •  TEACHER  •  COURSE CREATOR

Mike Mills is an award-winning artist and educator based in Cardiff. His work focuses on capturing the character of urban environments through expressive watercolour and pen and ink — rather than painting what he sees, Mike paints what he feels, using colour to reinterpret familiar places in a more atmospheric and personal way.

Each piece is an original, painted to capture a place as a feeling, not just a record. The work has been widely exhibited and collected, and it forms the foundation of everything taught at Artyfactor.

Mike has been drawing and painting all his life. The shift to teaching came from a simple belief: that anyone who wants to paint can learn to paint, if they have the right process.

Every painting follows the same four-stage process — a system built for consistency, expression, and confidence.

1. Big Shapes
Every painting begins with structure and composition — the bones of the scene. Where does the eye go? What are the key anchors? What can be left out? Getting this right means the rest of the painting has something solid to build on.

2. Watercolour
Expressive, non-literal colour. Abstract hues chosen for mood and atmosphere, not accuracy. Grass might be blue. Shadows might be warm. This is where most students surprise themselves.

3. Tone & Shade
Depth and dimension through layered Tombow brush pen marks. Light, shadow, and weight — the difference between something that looks flat and something that feels three-dimensional.

4. Detail
Storytelling, hatching, and negative space — the specific touches that make a scene feel real and inhabited. The stage where a painting finds its personality.

Every Artyfactor course teaches the same four-stage method Mike uses in every painting.