Available Classes and Workshops - Online or Classroom
NO SWEAT! Abstracts
If you’ve ever thought about or even wondered about painting abstracts, NO SWEAT! Abstracts is the class for you!
We’ll have two objectives. The first is to help you find your personal organic marks, shapes and colors! We’ll be exploring ways you like to move your brush, hand and arm when painting. We’ll also look at what types of squiggles appeal to you and possibly why? These are the things that help you brand yourself and further develop your style. They are also your own personal bag of tools to use when creating abstracts!
Our second objective will be to take this information and playfully begin to create your abstract paintings. At the end of the workshop, you’ll have 6+ abstracts to take home to frame and enjoy, or, to further develop, use as backgrounds or collage for other pieces, give to your friends and family and/or sell at your next garage sale. Lol
This class is for anyone interested in finding out more about their artistic selves and what they like and don’t like! Beginners, advanced, non-painters, and/or anyone who’s interested with an open mind and willingness to join in, play and have fun while creating.
It's All About ME - Selfies!
We'll start by creating four drawings using selfie photos you take with your phone. I'll be teaching different quick sketch techniques, like blind contour, semi-blind contour, cross-contour, and upside-down to help with your sketches.
Our intent is to create some distortion, so you don't take yourself so seriously. It's a fun way to get started and improve your sketching skills.
In the second half, we'll use inks, paints, markers and collage to complete our selfie sketches with attention to contrast and composition.
This is a good drawing and getting started workshop that helps artists loosen up and let their innate energy flow through to their art.
The Funkiest of Characters!
Starting out, we'll use inks or water colors to create background patterns on each of 6 paintings.
Next we'll find our characters! This usually starts with the eyes. We'll then work each piece individually using paint, markers, collage and patterns to further develop and bring out the personalities of each one and their stories.
This is a very creative a fun day and let's you use your imagination in ways you never thought about. There's usually lots of laughter!
Painting Like a Kid!
Remember when you were a kid and sat down to draw or paint something? It usually was something you thought about or experienced, sometimes that day!
You didn't think about it, you just sat down and started drawing or coloring! That's what this class is about. We're going to draw and paint like when we were kids and use our imaginations! No "googling" what a tree looks like. You already know what a tree looks like, right?
I use several games and stories to get students "into” this and to give them all ideas. Then we create each piece with markers and paint and turn it into to a story.
I will be teaching several illustration techniques.
What Do You See in the Deep Blue Sea?
We'll start out creating the background on one large painting using multiple layers of paint and stencils. Using your imagination you can look at the background and see what beautiful creature(s) is(are) swimming around. We'll create and paint those on a separate piece of paper and then using them as cutouts, place them on our background. This is a great class for creating layered backgrounds, understanding more about composition and telling a story, and using your imagination to create! Acrylic paint on canvas or paper.
Getting Your Digital On!
Have you been thinking about getting online and want to know more about it? Maybe you have interest in sharing your art online? Whether you are a newcomer or an experienced online digital user, this workshop will be helpful to you.
We’ll have 3 workshops:
Digital Media Overview – An overview of various avenues of online media (zoom, social media, personal websites, and 3rd party sales platforms, along with a discussion on the safety concerns with an online presence.
Social Media – We’ll specifically be looking at Facebook and Instagram. We’ll also touch on Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Personal Website – How to set up and create your own personal website utilizing the GoDaddy platform. GoDaddy has a free website option. You can choose to upgrade to a paid plan with more options if you wish.
This workshop can be done in person or online.
Junk Journals
One of my favorite things to do - work in my journals! Journals are a great way to find your creative streak, explore ideas, see what your organic marks and favorite colors are, record your activities and just play!
Everyone will be bringing a journal to work in to class. They can be new journals from any store, a current journal you already use, or a re-purposed book you want to make into a journal. I call this workshop "Junk Journals" because it's really fun to add "junk mail" to your pages and paint/write/draw over them. You need to also bring any pencils, pens, crayons, markers, acrylic paint, watercolors, thread you like, and a bag of fodder. Fodder is ticket stubs, menus from restaurants, recipes, notes, ads, etc., anything that has some meaning for you. You'll also need scissors and glue - I recommend a roll-on glue stick - UHU Stic.
I'll be teaching you how to add these types of journal pages:
· Extended pages
· Peek-through pages
· Box pages
· Window shutters
· Folded pages
· Fold Around pages
· Sewn pages
· Index tab pages
· How to add a bag/envelope
And also how to transfer images from another source to your journal pages.
Everyone loves this workshop! It's just plain fun and full of laughter and joy.