I wanted to attend a few art and craft classes and have wanted to for a long time. I do craft a lot and learn techniques from books or by experimenting but I have attended very few classes. Both my Masters degrees are in Mathematics and so I never really got a ‘formal’ art education. I wanted to take a few creative classes in 2011 but never found the time to do so and even though just 11 days have passed in the new year I can already see piles of work on my desk and long to-do lists for the year and I know that this is going to be a busy busy year on many fronts, especially at work. I work at a software house and our timings run from 9:00am – 6:00pm on a good day. Usually I get home at around 8:00pm. There goes my dream of enrolling in regular classes. BUT I really want to find the time this year to learn more creative techniques and so here is what I found…
THE STRATHMORE ONLINE ARTIST WORKSHOPS!
These look awesome and they’re free! I can’t wait to get started.
Just like I predicted, life at work has been so hectic that I have not been able to go through the first video lesson yet but since I can do this on my time I intend to go over the lessons on the weekends 🙂
There are three different art classes that you can sign up for. Here is what the Strathmore website says about them:
Workshop 1: Doodles Unleashed: Mixed Media Techniques
Instructor: Traci Bautista
Start date: January 1, 2012
Description: Whether you are a beginner or an experienced artist, you will enjoy a creative escape as you combine different media, color, texture, collage, doodling, lettering and more to create your own mixed media paintings. Play with paper in ways you never imagined!
Workshop 2: Watercolor Sketching
Instructor: Cathy Johnson
Start date: March 1, 2012
Description: Learn how to sketch from life using watercolor, pen and ink and more. Cathy Johnson will share numerous tricks and techniques, covering topics such as ink and watercolor, watercolor pencil, gouache and other mixed media. Learn how to start a sketch with pencil guidelines or jump right in with watercolors. Add interest and meaning to pages using a few select collage elements. Put all of these techniques to work in your nature, travel, urban or journal sketching adventures.
Workshop 3: FORCE Drawing Technique
Start date: May 1, 2012Description: FORCE spans all forms of art, from animation to illustration, cartooning to fine art. Mike Mattesi, author of the popular and inspiring FORCE drawing books, demonstrates his drawing theory across four compelling videos. During the videos you will learn how to draw FORCE, form and shape. Through this knowledge you will add more life and drama to your work. These three main principles can be applied to occupations in the entertainment industry such as character design, animation, illustration, storyboarding and comic books.
I love the internet and how it brings us all together, artists all over the world, doing different things and being able to learn from each other and share our work. That is what we all maintain blogs for as well. We’re constantly sharing and learning from each other and ‘conversing’ and asking questions through comments. All this reminds me of the reasons why I am a self proclaimed ‘artist’ or ‘crafter’, I love being part of something so big, something that links me to people all over the world. I love being an artist and I will try my best to find the time to do what I love to do – to create! I hope 2012 is a creative and artsy year for y’all as well!
Altered Fantasy 