Both! It’s super easy for beginners, and intentionally challenging for the experienced. Painting can feel intimidating. As a beginner imagine yourself as a brave baby learning to walk, falling and laughing (maybe also crying too if needed), analyzing what caused the fall, trying again, and soon enough you will be running up that road (or hill). As an experienced artist you will be challenged to work at the edge of your abilities. We will target the areas that you are trying to expand and grow, you will do great if you permit yourself to make a lot of mistakes.

Operating at the edge of your ability where you make mistakes and learn how to correct them can end up accelerating your learning.

A strategy that we will use is progressive overload, a training principle where you gradually increase the intensity or volume of your workouts to continually challenge your body and stimulate growth and adaptation. It's a key factor in improving strength, endurance, and muscle mass

We will also work with gouache. It is great for beginners and for outdoor painting. It is versatile, easy to set up, allows for fast layering, and dries fast so it’s very forgiving if you need to correct things (a stay wet palette is recommended).

A lot of painting! Multiple demos from the instructor, breaking down skills, and painting techniques. You will receive individual assistance  while you're painting. The goal is to give you a solid foundation of techniques that allow you to express yourself freely.

Also good music and jokes.

Develop your strengths and manage your weaknesses.

We will review—what was easy, what was hard, and what you could try next (or w.w.w.w h.w.y c.t.n for short )

“w.w.w.w h.w.y c.t.n” will help you to independently solve any areas in your painting by analysing what works specifically for you so you can be aware of what successful strategies you are employing and what things are hard for you at the moment. 

For the easy things, keep going at it, and as you learn the things that come naturally will get better the more you do them. 

For the difficult things once you are aware of them you can start tackling them so you have less things that weigh you down, your overall work will be stronger. 

Imagine you were on a boat and the easy thing is the boat floating or your strong muscles rowing or your keen sense of navigation or your eyesight or your really good marine gps.

The hard thing could be the holes in the shell of the boat, as you notice the holes and plug them, you float better and you enjoy yourself better, oh look! a fish at starboard!!

anyway! 

Another reason we share what we struggled with is because someone else in the class might have a solution because it was something that they had struggled with too.

Painting is a visual language that can be learnt like any other language. Exactly in the same way you learned how to write as a kid or drive a car or code or learn how to juggle or sing or do excel or tie your shoes or tie a bowtie or play football or tennis or whistle or make croissants. 

Whether or not you believe in talent you can improve on your current abilities if you are receptive to analyse your own processes and are effectively supported.

I personally started improving in painting once I accepted that it was highly unlikely that I would build proficiency overnight and I needed a way to guide my own progress.I also had amazing painting mentors. We will be working a lot on our process and how you can learn to be aware of areas where you can improve your work.

I also started squeezing more paint on my palette. I was being too stingy, try not to be too stingy. That'll make painting easier, you’ll probably forget while painting but i’ll remind you, don’t worry.

Nope! What you will learn is a process that you can adapt to your own practice as you see fit, a method of operation if you will. A fun thing about painting/drawing is that you can put 10 folks in front of the same view or subject and each of them is going to focus on something different based on their own sensibilities. The goal of these sessions is to help you express your individual viewpoints and stylistic idiosyncrasies.

One thing that can help with not being stuck with a specific style or approach is having multiple sources of inspiration and learning. Learn from as many sources as you can. I recommend taking classes from other instructors, I suggest Megan Ellen MacDonald (Toronto based) and Keita Morimoto if possible, they both have online courses and I learnt a million  things from them.

It’s likely if you enjoy having fun, trying new things, being outside, improving your painting skills by doing a lot of paintings, documenting your surroundings, pushing past your fears of the blank page and learning to be okay with making mistakes and learning from them. Also jokes, if you like jokes, there will be jokes and snacks and sunsets.

Also the feeling of progress, no matter how small, is very fulfilling.

Little by little, you learn how to build your own strategy that you improve week by week, month by month, year by year, painting after painting, and when you look back at your old “terrible paintings” from the good ol’ days, you start seeing a pattern. You had a vision but not the technical abilities to showcase it, you just have to be patient, persevere, and be gentle with your own progress.