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Classes / Courses

Courses

New course every 6 weeks

6-Week Painting Course

6 classes / 6 weeks

MONDAYS,
6PM–7:30PM 
Pacific Time

$199

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Join Anytime

Drawing Course
for Beginners

12 classes / 12 weeks

TUESDAYS,
6:30PM–8PM 
Pacific Time

$299

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New course every 6 weeks

6-Week Drawing Course

6 classes / 6 weeks

WEDNESDAYS,
6:30PM–8PM Pacific Time

$199

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Or call for a free consultation: (802) 505-7624

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Drawing by student, Brynn Amaya

Essential Drawing Course for Beginners

Every Tuesday, Join anytime
6:30pm – 8:00pm Pacific Time

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You will learn the most important aspects of drawing from the very beginning. You will build the foundation for rendering basic objects and environments, and become ready to practice these techniques with more complex subjects in future drawings. All the techniques of the Essential Drawing Course are done in monochrome (black and white) so you can keep your focus on structure, tonality, shading, form, and texture.

Click here to see the techniques covered in the course.

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This drawing course includes 12 online classes, plus one free bonus class to “Figure Drawing” on Saturdays. The Essential Drawing classes take place in real-time every Tuesday at 6:30pm Pacific Time via Zoom. You can join the course at any time – each class is an independent technique.

Benefits:
– Receive photo references for each technique
– Watch the instructor’s demo
– FREE bonus class to a Figure Drawing session on Saturdays
– See what other students are creating in class
– Ask questions & receive instructor critiques in real-time

You will start from the very beginning, with the foundation of the drawing skill. In 12 weeks you will learn all the basics of drawing: how to express the light, the form, the space, and how to bring any object to life on paper. The topics include landscape, interior, still life, floral bouquet, face, and other subjects. Lessons cover line drawing, tonal drawing, shading, composing, sketching, and refining. You will become comfortable with drawing objects realistically, expressing positive and negative shapes, creating the illusion of 3-D, constructing a space in perspective, and adding finishing touches. Materials you will be drawing with are pencil, charcoal, pen/ink, conte, and oil pastel. You can enter this course at any time, as each class is a stand-alone lesson. Home assignments are provided after each class so that you could practice the skill you learned in class, on your own, and strengthen it through this additional practice.

Become an artist you never thought possible!

PLUS receive recordings of every class in the course. This will allow you to pause, rewatch, rewind, and replay any part of the course, for life! 

Online & in real time

Pastel painting by student, Sandi W.

Techniques of Soft Pastel
6-Week Drawing Course

Wednesdays, June 29th – August 3rd
6:30pm – 8:00pm Pacific Time

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  • 6 live online 1.5-hour classes
  • No experience necessary
  • Adults and teens 15 years or older
  • Access to recordings
  • Supply List provided

    Supplies:
    • Two types of pastel: Sennielier soft pastel and nu-pastel (you will need both) No oil pastel, please
    • Sketch pad, 9×12 inch, or any size
    • Pastel paper, 9×12 inch, or any size
    • Roll of paper towels
    • Eraser
    • Paper stump
    • Fixative spray, however framing is recommended instead of spraying

Always wanted to learn how to use soft pastels? Interested in incorporating color into your drawings? Then take this journey into the colorful world of soft pastels!

Pastels have a depth and richness to them that is unique to this medium. We will begin with the fun of blending colors before moving on to an easy and exciting subject of land, skies, and clouds, and then – to defining shapes in a still life. We will concentrate on the colors of each object and where they are in relation to each other. Before any detail is added, the artwork is filled with life and drama simply by applying color. As the shadows and lines bring the artwork into focus, each artist is encouraged to find their own rhythm and style.

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You will learn techniques for working in pastels that will make your subjects come to life as your skills progress. This pastel course is an excellent transition from drawing to painting, as it is drawing with color, also referred to as “painting with pastels”.

In this course, you will learn:

  • The different brands and main types of soft pastels
  • Different surfaces to use soft pastels on
  • Pastel applications (blending, scumbling, optically color-mixing, etc.)
  • Color mixing with pastels
  • How to “paint” landscapes and still lifes with pastels

On completion of this course, you will have experience with color mixing and be able to apply and practice the techniques with your own artwork. This class will give you structured direction and make the process easy for you to start using soft pastels. You will complete at least two drawings by the end of the course, in addition to helpful color charts and informative studies.

This class is great for beginners and seasoned artists alike.

Appropriate for all levels.

This course gives you access to 9 hours of live instruction plus all of the recordings. 

Online & in real time

Drawing by student, Jeremy H.

Perspective: The Enigma Behind Mastery
6-Week Drawing Course

Wednesdays, May 18th – June 22nd
6:30pm – 8:00pm Pacific Time

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  • 6 live online 1.5-hour classes
  • No experience necessary
  • Adults and teens 15 years or older
  • Access to recordings
  • Supply List provided

    Supplies:
    • 4B pencil
    • 18in ruler
    • Eraser
    • Sharpener
    • 9×12″ drawing pad (not sketch pad)

Perspective is all around us, but it makes itself invisible to the untrained eye. When artists come to depict any scenery, they get stuck because they lack the ability to see the big picture – they are not able to see the structure that everything is based on. Knowing the fundamentals of perspective makes it surprisingly easy to create interiors, outdoor scenes, streets filled with people, and imaginary scenarios where everyone and everything is in proportion. This skill of perspective drawing is definitely undervalued but we at Prima Materia consider it one of the key abilities for fine artists, illustrators, animators, designers, architects, and life-long learners.

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The science of perspective is well forgotten in the 21st century because of the technologies that offer architects and designers the substitute of needing to know how to do it by hand. However, this helpful technology creates a handicap in our brain. An artist must be aware of the fundamentals of perspective to be able to call themselves competent.
This is one skill that is close to impossible to grasp on your own because perspective is surprisingly counterintuitive in some of its parts. We are here to demystify perspective and show you the secrets to avoiding mistakes that even the great masters made.
What to expect:
– Learn to draw interiors and exteriors with accurate 1-point perspective
– Create reflections in mirrors
– How to add people into your scenes
– Change your point of view in any location
– Develop your sensibility to perspective that will allow YOU to notice mistakes in the works of the great masters.

Appropriate for all levels.

This course gives you access to 9 hours of live instruction plus all of the recordings. 

Painting by artist, May Miturich

Introduction to Watercolors
6-Week Painting Course

Mondays, July 18th – August 22
6:00 – 7:30pm Pacific Time

Watercolor is very much a technique-based medium. What we call “technique” is the understanding of the special watercolor properties that you have to know in order to make the best of this exquisite material. This 6-week course is designed to provide you with such information. Beginners welcome – no art experience needed.

If you’ve always wanted to learn how to paint in watercolors for plein air, commissions, or to explore new mediums, this is a course you don’t want to miss!

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You will learn how to:
– Optically color mix
– Control tonality
– Reserve the white paper
– How to create washes
– Fix mistakes using techniques and tools
– Paint using wet-into-wet, wet-onto-dry, and dry-onto-dry techniques

PLUS receive recordings of every class in the course. This will allow you to pause, rewatch, rewind, and replay any part of the course.

Online & in real time

Painting by artist, Joan Miró

Abstract Inspired by Joan Miro
6-Week Painting Course

Mondays, May 23rd – July 11th (no class May 30th or July 4th)
6:00 – 7:30pm Pacific Time

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Why Do Artists Make Abstract Art? Painters create abstraction not because they can’t paint realistic still lifes and portraits, but because they want to explore a different aspect of painting – SELF-EXPRESSION. This Abstract Art course will help you transform your interest in abstract art into the skill to express yourself in a style of your own. 

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You can allow yourself to be influenced by Miro –  it would not make you a copyist of Miro, but it will help you find your style. That is exactly the purpose of this course. Do not hesitate to “borrow” from Miro – be like a child who is learning from the parents, to later become his or her own person.

Course Schedule:

Week 1: Introduction to Miro and his approach to abstract. Practice automatism

Week 2: Create a practice piece to incorporate automatism,

Week 3: Create a second practice piece, using his second approach.

Week 4: Start your larger abstract with your favorite approach

Week 5: Continue your large abstract

Week 6: Share your work with a mini-exhibition and discuss the symbols you included and the story you wanted to portray.

Even in Miro’s abstract forms, we can still recognize animals, body parts, and random playfulness. This class is about equilibrium and decoration. Tailor your eye’s ability to compose on the go. Combine spontaneity and calculated abstraction.

Past Courses

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Painting by American artist, Wayne Thiebaud

Cake in Impasto
2-Week Mini Painting Course

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This class is going to be a piece of cake! Inspired by Wayne Thiebaud, an American artist that made a name for himself by painting sweets, candies, and cakes in vibrant colors with thick paint. His signature style is the colorful glowing halo that surrounds his desserts, which he called “halation”. If you look him up, you’ll see he obsessively painted his favorite subjects and in this class, you’ll understand why he just couldn’t get enough.

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In this two-week course, we will follow in Thiebaud’s footsteps and paint 4 canvases of different types of sweets. You’ll be a baker, but instead of flour and sugar, your ingredients will be acrylic paint and gel medium. Repetition is the name of the game, and by the end of the class, you’ll have 4 paintings that could be hung separately or together as a polyptych. 

Learn how to compose your desserts on your canvas in the most appetizing way, use appealing colors, and create the frosting by means of impasto.

Class Schedule

Class 1: Introduction to the impasto technique, learn about Wayne Thiebaud, begin your first piece

Class 2: Complete 4 paintings of colorful desserts in impasto, in the style of Thiebaud. 

Learn about Thiebaud and how to recreate this delicious way of painting the most scrumptious of subjects!

Charcoal drawing by master Da Vinci

Drawing Faces With An Unusual Technique

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In this class, we’ll show you how to draw a face with a very unusual, rarely used but very effective and fun technique. You will create an expressive drawing of a face in 3D with delicate lights and shadows using your fingers! You may not expect to create impressive art using your hands, but did you know that Masters like Leonardo Da Vinci did exactly that? You’ll experience a new way to draw a face that looks surprisingly real.

No experience? No problem! This class is a fun and beginner-friendly class, where you will learn a lot of new tricks. The instructor will lead you, step by step, through this process.

Painting by instructor, Nikusha Beatty

Portrait in Pieces
6-Week Painting Course

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Create a contemporary portrait with contemporary tools. Make a Pop Art painting with the special technique introduced in this course. This technique will combine drawing, masking, tracing, transferring, and painting in one artwork. Utilize your knowledge of tonality, color-mixing, and composing that will help you produce a piece that appears to belong in a modern museum. You will learn how to animate a portrait with a 5-step process. With this method, you’ll create an effect of shattered glass or mosaic with acrylic paint on canvas. There are many ways of creating contemporary art, but this one will be about using familiar tools in new ways.

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Tracing is well-known from the Old Masters to contemporary artists and typically seen as something to avoid if you’re doing innovative work. In this case, tracing will be our first tool to make our painting 1. More precise, 2. More creative, and 3. More intricate. Masking tape is the second tool we will employ to divide and unify our portrait at the same time. 

You will be selecting an image to work off of from your personal sources. We recommend a photograph of a face that is already remarkable in some way, in terms of lighting, expression, and color. Be prepared to have 3 different reference photos because you will learn in the first class which one will be the most suitable for the technique. 

Course schedule:

Week 1: Exploring the subject of Pop Art, made with masking tape. Choose your subject matter and recompose it to align it with the technique. Start sketching on canvas.

Week 2: Begin painting your portrait in color.

Week 3: Work with parchment paper, masking tape, charcoal, and scissors to prepare for the next step.

Week 4: Continue painting by adjusting your color harmony in the Pop Art direction.

Week 5: Finishing touches.

Week 6: Make technical adjustments before revealing your portrait. Sharing, discussion, and feedback. 

 

Takeaways:

There are so many.

  • Breaking away from realism
  • Learning to be more creative with your portraiture
  • Getting inspired by being more experimental
  • Learning to let go of preconceived expectations for the outcome 
  • Learn how Pop Art has an element of design infused into it
  • Recognizing that in art, you do to learn, not learn to do
  • Learning to paint with and without your thinking brain IN ONE PAINTING!
  • Painting a unique contemporary portrait that is unlike anything you’ve done before
  • Recognizing that “I can’t paint” is just a story
  • Discovering why the word “perfect” does not apply to art. There is no such thing as “perfect art”
  • Allowing your art to surprise you
  • Realize that previous art experience is not always necessary to create powerful art
  • Learning that you can create intuitively

 

If you have any questions or doubts about your qualifications, call us at 802-505-7624.

Drawing by master, Albrecht Dürer

The Classic Style of Pen  & Ink
6-Week Drawing Course

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Advance your drawing style and achieve high contrast in your drawings. Pen and ink is the medium of restraints and precision, where time investment is key – this is why we will spend the first two classes learning the principles and techniques, and develop a feel for working with pen and ink, and the next four weeks will be dedicated to creating one drawing, to give you the time to add the details. We will go very slowly to enjoy the process of drawing, to savor every pen stroke. 

A detailed drawing like this requires you to take your time with each particular area. You have to define and refine each part before you move to the next. This is the difference between pen and ink and other mediums. In this class, we will focus on the specific strategy in pen-and-ink, so you can learn the unique approach that other mediums may not offer you to this extent. 

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You will learn how to shade with pen and ink, which is very different from pencil or charcoal. We are often asked about this, and in this course, you’ll learn 3 ways of shading with pen and ink to achieve smooth transitions between the lights and shadows. Pen and ink is a wonderful medium, but due to ink’s permanence, many artists try to avoid it because they don’t know how to correct their mistakes. You can’t erase! You will learn multiple ways to make corrections and become familiar with the methods used by the Masters and professional graphic artists who adore pen-and-ink for its sophistication and elegance. fix unwanted lines with this permanent medium, directly inspired by how Masters would in their pen and ink drawings. 

You will begin to train your hand for precision and your eye for seeing the form, and you’ll be rewarded with an elegant drawing as the result. This course will be your opportunity to incorporate this advanced drawing style into any of your future work and experience it as easy and enjoyable, while your drawings will appear complex. 

Course Schedule

Week 1: We’ll start from the very beginning: practicing a variety of grips, making marks, lines, learning how a specific grip and pressure can change the style of your line, understanding the principles of drawing with pen and ink, and the purpose of cross-hatching. 

Week 2: Learn 5 techniques of correcting mistakes in pen and ink drawings.

Week 3: We’ll begin our original drawing with using a pencil, to ensure perfect composing and accuracy with the details. You will be refining your pen and ink drawing for the next 3 weeks. You’ll be taken step-by-step through the process of how to start a highly detailed artwork. 

Week 4: You will be introduced to the approach unique to pen and ink. Use cross-hatching for shading.

Week 5: Add texture to nuance the darker areas, by gradually building your tonal values.

Week 6: Take your pen and ink drawing to full completion. By that time you will develop and will be able to see your style in pen and ink.

Appropriate for all levels.

This course gives you access to 9 hours of live instruction plus all of the recordings. 

Self Portrait by Vincent van Gogh

Sculpting With The Brush:
How to Be Van Gogh
6-Week Painting Course

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Van Gogh, known for his mesmerizing swirls and textures, is also the Master of form, unsurpassed at creating dimensionality on canvas. In this course, you will learn how to virtually transform your brush into a magic chisel – the ‘sculpting tool’ that builds volume and space with pigment and color. There are many ways to use paint to “sculpt with the brush”, such as building the actual volume – creating a tactile texture like in a barelief, but that is not what we will do. The magic of Van Gogh’s brushwork is that there is no real volume: the entire effect of 3D is based purely on the visual perception of optical dimension.

We will closely study Van Gogh’s ways of making the form three-dimensional. Learning to recreate Van Gogh’s robust brushwork, rich, luminous color, and potent, generous paint application, and especially his ability to sculpt with the brush, will help you transform any object you will be depicting into a weighty, voluminous form inside a convincingly deep space.  

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This is an opportunity to help you transition from drawing to painting in the most natural way. If you’ve attended the “Volume” class in the Essential Drawing Course, you already have the idea – you’ll be able to apply the same technique with paint. 

We will begin with creating the effects of 3D, learning to “sculpt” various forms using specific brushwork, and then will create three oil paintings in color in Van Gogh’s style. 

 

Week 1: Learn how to lay the brushstrokes to describe the form and practice the concept of sculpting. 

Week 2: Copy one of Van Gogh’s paintings to understand his brushstrokes and use of color, to prepare for independent painting. 

Week 3 & 4: Imagine yourself being Van Gogh, and recreate a real still life in his style.

Week 5 & 6: Dive deeper into Van Gogh’s technique, and working from an image of a real person as if he is posing for you, create it in oils as Van Gogh would. 

 

Just like van Gogh, you will also be using oils. Expect to see a dramatic transformation of your observational ability and painting style: your canvas will contain more energy and vigor. This experience is going to enrich your creative process and open your mind to further experimentation with brushwork.

PLUS receive recordings of every class in the course. This will allow you to pause, rewatch, rewind, and replay any part of the course.

Drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci

Drawing Drapery on the Human Form
6-Week Drawing Course

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In this 6-week course, you will learn how to make a masterful drawing of folds, looking at the great masters’ artwork such as Bernini, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo to understand the technique behind such convincing artworks. You will follow in the Masters’ footsteps and create realistic drawings that will express two types of fabrics on two figures: heavy fabric draped over the body and sheer fabric draped over the face, in addition to making helpful studies where you will learn the anatomy of folds.

If you’ve ever struggled with movement and action, drapery is the subject you need in almost all artworks. You are going to learn how to make drapery live, move, and breath – and help you up your game.

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Benefits From This Course

  • With each lesson you will take your understanding of drawing the drapery to a higher level; 
  • Build observational skills;
  • Step-by-step guidance;
  • Study of the Masters;
  • Advancement in technical strength and dexterity;
  • You will learn how to use drapery in your art in a way that carries your message across.

Artists found that the representation of drapery and its movement is nearly inexhaustible in its variety and capacity to suggest things other than itself. Drapery is not an “old-fashioned subject”; it is essential to any project that involves people or interiors. 

In addition to drawing drapery on the human form, an important conversation about how to further apply these techniques to your own artworks will take place. In Renaissance and Baroque figure drawings, drapery is not just an elegant subject or a motif to practice observation and build mastery: drapery seems to convey action, which also helped the artist develop narrative and mood. Artists can use drapery as a powerful tool to express tension, alarm, passion, sensuality, wealth. The character of drawn drapery is strongly linked to both the time and the artist who draws it.

Appropriate for all levels.

This course gives you access to 9 hours of live instruction plus all of the recordings. 

Sketches by artist, James Chiahan Lee

The Art of Ideas: How To Use a Sketchbook
6-Week Drawing Course

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When you get your first sketchbook, you become a hunter for ideas. “Pray comes to the hunter”, says Olya, definitely meaning the sketchbook. When you have a sketchbook, you start getting a lot of ideas. You never know when your best idea will strike you, so you want to carry your sketchbook everywhere. Everything suddenly becomes worth your attention, and you begin to fill it with random drawings – some of which may turn out to be your body of work in the future!

A sketchbook is a fundamental tool for artists – it’s a must-have for any creative. In this course, you’ll learn how to use it effectively to lay the foundation for all of your future work.

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Benefits of the Course

You can use it like a journal, record your most exciting impressions while travelling, sketch the faces you find interesting – to get practice, draw animals in different positions, capture your family members, jot down your own reflection as the evidence of your existence, compose imaginary scenes, try different art supplies – and you don’t have to show any of that to anyone: your sketchbook is your private art kitchen – and a wealth of material.

In this course you will learn how to make a sketchbook indispensable for your art practice and fill it up with fascinating records. The objective is to learn how to use a sketchbook to catalyze creativity, gather ideas for art, and use in your travels. 

Appropriate for all levels.

This course gives you access to 9 hours of live instruction plus all of the recordings. 

Color Mixing & Color Theory 101
6-Week Painting Course

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Painting starts with color-mixing, and this course is the most important course for anyone who wants to try painting. In this course, you will acquire the system for how to set your palette and mix any color you want. Color mixing is like science; anyone who understands it, gets off to a good start.

When you want to learn painting, you must get to know your pigments, their properties, handy shortcuts, and professional tips on the do’s and don’ts of paint mixing. 

This course will be devoted entirely to that!

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Many self-taught painters struggle with getting their paintings to look the way they want — which can be very frustrating. Often the reason for muddy, weak, naive, or garish canvas is simply a lack of information on how to work with color. No need to wrestle with it on your own: color-mixing is learned the fastest through experience and guidance: throughout the six weeks of this course you will be developing the right habits from the beginning.

 

What you will learn: 

  • Color-mixing fundamentals
  • Setting your palette 
  • Which pigments are must-have
  • Do’s and don’ts of color mixing
  • How to mix ANY color

This class is great for beginners, and is very useful for painters who have found color mixing frustrating.

PLUS receive recordings of every class in the course. This will allow you to pause, rewatch, rewind, and replay any part of the course.

Drawing by student, Ray Brown

Introduction to Charcoal
6-Week Drawing Course

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Charcoal is a true learning medium, perfect for those new to art because it’s the best tool for students. Students in the old academy would draw endlessly with charcoal. It is a forgiving and versatile medium – the ease of erasing and blending makes it a joy to work it. In the end, it gives you a remarkably realistic appearance when a charcoal drawing is taken to completion. 

If you’ve tried charcoal and found it messy – this course will show you how to control it. In each class, the instructor will lead you through demonstrations that cover 6 independent charcoal drawing techniques, such as blending, creating texture, using the eraser as a drawing tool, drawing on paper versus canvas, and more.

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Benefits of the Course

In the first class, you’ll learn the difference between the types of charcoals and experiment with their unique properties by creating an informational chart that will benefit all of your future drawings. The rest of the course will be devoted to playing, experimenting, and learning with this wonderful medium.

You will be guided through the entire process, from understanding the difference between the types of charcoals to creating a completed and realistic drawings. We will walk through how to add value (lights and shadows) including types of shading styles. Upon the course completion, you will walk away with a strong foundation that will make you comfortable to create beautiful charcoal drawings on your own.

You do not need prior knowledge: we will take you step by step to learn how to draw with and use charcoal so you will get the style you want, whether it be realistic or sketchy, blended or textured. You will learn how to use the techniques and combine them.

We will get to know the tools, materials and techniques of drawing and shading in a new and simple way. You will get familiar with Charcoals (vine, willow, and compressed), Eraser, and Blending Stumps.

This course gives you access to 9 hours of live instruction plus all of the recordings. 

Whether you’re a long time art lover, art hobbyist, high school student who wants to improve their art portfolio, someone who want to learn some new skills of drawing, or an artist who wants to practice another medium, you found the right course.

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