5 Skillshare classes you can complete in less than 1 hour
Painting birds has never been easier after taking this quick skillshare class by Yasmina Creates
I don’t know about you, but I often sit down with the urge to create or paint something, but have no idea what that thing is. My creativity and imagination just aren’t turning on. This is when I tend to turn to Skillshare, an online learning platform with thousands of painting classes ready to stream. But as I look through my saved classes I’m trying to decide between classes than can sometimes be between 1 and 4 hours long! And sometimes I just don’t have the patience for that. So over time I have found classes on the shorter side that are still amazing and I love the things I have created from them.
Below I have listed 5 classes that I have taken over the years that can be completed within the afternoon, if not under an hour. They are listed below from easiest, or beginner, to more advanced.
Starting off strong, this class from the amazing Peggy Dean is for watercolor artist’s of all levels. This class is especially great for beginners to play with the wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques, but is also just a great way to warm up your hand at the start of a painting session. Peggy goes through four different techniques to get your creativity going and conquer your fear of the blank page, and as you can see from the picture above, I especially like the first technique of laying down strokes of wet color next to each other and letting the colors run into each other and bleed. I particularly love the way you can test different color palettes with this quick method to see if different colors will go well together.
Not only a quick class to get you creating quickly, this class from Peggy Dean arms you with skills and exercises to come back to repeatedly when feeling creatively blocked or in need of a quick warm up.
2. Paint a Feather Forest Pattern in Watercolor and Gold -Keren Duchan
I loved this class and technique so much I did it three times with different shapes and color palettes.
Art for me is so many things, but at the base, art is a form of therapy, relaxation,32 and meditation for me. There is nothing better to me after a long day at work then relaxing by painting and listening to a podcast. I found the technique and tutorial laid out by Keren Duchan in her Paint a Feather Forrest Pattern in Watercolor to be so relaxing that I did it three times! Keren’s Skillshare class is straight to the point and gives lot of examples of the style. I loved her short tutorial on the style and then the variety of examples to get your mind thinking. I love the way my three paintings came out and each took less than 30 minutes to complete. I also think this technique could be applied to many different styles and shapes and not just the tree shape.
3. Sketchbook Practice: Make Everyday Objects Pop With Watercolor and Pen - Ohn Mar Win
Ohn Mar Win is one of my favorite contemporary artists, and inevitably she ends up on a lot of my art recommendations. Ohn Mar has a whole series of classes on Skillshare directed at exploring with watercolor in your sketchbook and trying different techniques. In this class Ohn Mar has you explore the effects of pen (mostly white gel pen) on watercolor. She uses the examples of vases and mugs to illustrate the technique but encourages you to explore different themes, and I chose fish and tropical flora. I love these kinds of classes because they are all about learning and discovery and not about perfection
4. Loose Bird Play! Drawing & Painting Watercolor or Gouache Birds in FUN Styles - Yasmina Creates
Yasmina Creates is the Skillshare profile of artist Yasmina Mattson, and Yasmina has a large collection of watercolor classes ranging from classes for absolute beginners in watercolor to more niche topics like painting fun and colorful birds in watercolor and gouache. This class will technically take you longer than an hour if you do all the exercises Yasmina outlines, but I focused primarily on the last few lessons of painting a realistic bird (above left) and a fun imaginary bird (above right). I have often found it hard in the past to capture movement in my art or feel confident in faithfully painting animals, but Yasmina took away the pressure in this class and makes it all about play and exploration, and by loosening up I think I was able to capture the body posture of the bird on the left quite well.
5. Venice Watercolour - Keeping it Simple and Practicing Brushwork - Nadine Dudek
Nadine keeps this lesson straightforward and quick. She uses a limited palette and even provides you with a template to download.
I have recently discovered the artist Nadine Dudek and I am obsessed! Nadine is an Australian based artist and has a beautiful talent for painting wildlife. Nadine has a handful of classes on Skillshare, and I decided to first tackle her Venice Watercolor class because I have a goal of getting better at painting city scenery and I was intrigued because the class was only 29 minutes! I love Nadine’s teaching style; she gives very clear actionable steps and doesn’t waste her class time. I watched through each lesson before doing the step myself, and I was able to paint this in about 30 minutes (with drying time) and I quite happy with the outcome but I decided to do it again to see if I could improve. By doing this art tutorial twice I was able to gain a better understanding of the shapes and shadows that go into this piece. I genuinely like elements from both paintings, its all about practice and exploration.
There is a lot to praise for the art of short classes. It takes a lot of talent to distill lessons down to their essentials, yet all of the artists above did so perfectly in their own unique way! I hope at least one of these classes piqued your interest. If you enjoyed reading this please subscribe down below to my newsletter to get updates on my website, Etsy discounts, as well as news about a new blog or art tutorial!