Announcing the 2018 Online Workshops!

Our FREE Online Workshops will be returning again this March! Join us in our virtual classroom for free video lessons and downloadable instructions created by three awesome and experienced artists!

The first video lesson will be posted in our workshop website on March 5, 2018! 

What do you love to paint the most? You’ll never know until you explore a wide variety of subject matter. This workshop presents a sampler of popular watercolor subjects: landscapes, still life, and portraits. Kelly will show you how watercolor’s unique properties can do the heavy lifting in each painting. Watch it create a serene blue sky, a soft shadow defining a cheekbone, and reflected light on a shiny surface–all in seconds. You’ll paint a card with a winter landscape that you might like so much you won’t want to send it, followed by a colorful still life painting of gum balls. Next you’ll practice painting a series of facial features in anticipation of the final project, a limited-palette portrait that is easier than you might imagine. Watercolor is challenging and can take decades to master, but this medium’s special quirks are so seductive you might find yourself under its spell for the rest of your life.

Week 1, March 5: Card with Spring Landscape
Masking fluid is a watercolor artist’s secret weapon, and we will use it to create a painting of a flowering tree in a spring landscape. And if you would like to paint multiple cards, you’ll see how easy it is to develop variations on this tree to suit your color preferences. Magnolia? Red bud? Apple? Forsythia? The choice is yours.

Week 2, March 12: Bubble Gum Still Life
This workshop is about something most beginning artists don’t consider: reflected light. We’ll learn how colorful objects can influence each other. This effect is surprisingly easy to replicate with wet-into-wet watercolor, and we’ll practice that by painting a few gum balls. We’ll also learn how to create the candy’s shiny surface using masking fluid.

Week 3, March 19: Practicing Facial Features
How do you paint something difficult? It helps if you break it down into small parts and tackle them one at a time. We will practice painting a sheet of individual eyes, noses, and mouths in various positions. Feeling scared? Paint with a single color. Feeling brave? Try full color. It’s the easiest way to dip your artistic big toe into the ocean of portrait painting.

Week 4, March 26: Limited-Palette Portrait
We’ll use skills learned in Week 3’s workshop to paint a limited-palette watercolor portrait using your choice of colors. After drawing a pencil outline of our subject’s main features, we will use masking fluid to establish highlights. Then comes the fun part: we will coat the entire sheet of paper with several analogous colors. Once that is dry, we will work on the features using a darker color. This colorful twist on an old-school exercise is popular for a reason: it makes portrait painting a lot less intimidating.

Workshop 2: Colored Pencil with Mixed Media

Instructor: Sarah Becktel
Start Date: May 7, 2018

This workshop series will focus on creating art with colored pencil as the primary medium. Sarah will introduce techniques for adding solvents, watercolor, acrylic, and ink to enhance and accentuate artwork while still maintaining the look and feel of colored pencil.

Lesson 1: Materials and Surfaces to Enhance your Work
Lesson 2: Enhancing Your Work with Solvent Blending
Lesson 3: Enhancing your Work with Watercolor and Acrylic
Lesson 4: Enhancing your Work with Pen and Ink

^{Iliac Perch by Sarah Becktel} 

Workshop 3: Finding the Focus in Your Painting

Instructor: Robert Burridge
Start Date: September 4, 2018

Did you ever wonder why your painting has no punch? Too flat? Dull? This workshop will help you make your paintings pop using contrast, dramatic lighting and dynamic color combinations.

Robert Burridge shows you how he jump-starts his paintings using four basic principles that he calls his 4 Cs. You will learn how to paint ordinary subjects with these quick-focus techniques, turning your painting into a WOW. No matter what your favorite subject is, you can punch it up and create dramatic, graphically strong paintings. All levels welcome.

How do the Workshops work?

• Workshops are self-paced. You participate when you want.
• Each Workshop has 4 weekly lessons. Once a workshop begins, a lesson is published on the Workshop page each week for four weeks. Once the lessons are published, they will stay active on the site until December 31.
• In addition to the lessons, students can participate in conversations on our discussion boards or share work in the classroom photo gallery.
• Each weekly lesson includes a video lesson and downloadable instruction sheet. You will complete assignments on your own, at your own pace. Due to the size of the classes, there is no formal instructor review of your assignments. However, in the past, many students have shared their work by posting it on the discussion board or in the photo gallery.
• Instructors will actively participate at the start of each workshop through the first 4 weeks. Instructors will post tips and comments during this time. After the 4 weeks, Strathmore will continue to monitor classroom discussions and answer questions, with the help of the instructor as needed.