in early 2022, i began to discover the world of online art instruction. facebook had figured me out and started to serve me up targeted ads for new zealand intuitive abstract painter judy woods who offered both free and paid courses. i took a free drawing workshop with her and seriously considered taking her longer stARTs program; i was VERY close to pulling the trigger but never did. i learned a lot from her free material and was very much drawn in to the concept of learning more about how to make abstract art via online classes. i didn’t really like anything i made in her free course so i’m not sharing any photos but they were interesting explorations and the first time i really understood what “intuitive” art meant.
after flitting around with several other online instructors and their short free classes, i stumbled upon nicholas wilton and art2life and his free class called the breadcrumbs challenge in september of 2022. taking that made me want to keep going with him as an instructor, and the paid course that the free one was promoting was called spark, which was a 3-week class exploring “what lights you up.” it didn’t cost as much as the longer courses i was seeing, like judy’s, so it was less of a financial commitment, and i figured i could recoup the cost if it got me painting again, hopefully more abstractly. i ended up loving the class and falling for the whole art2life approach to artmaking. it was kinda woo woo and inspirational, correlating the process of art making with self actualization, which spoke to me. we mostly worked in a large sketchbook but i still love many of the pages i made in that class and have tried to recreate a few of them on canvas or wood.
the next level up in the art2life course roster was something called cvp, the creative visionary program, a 12-week deep dive into art principles and mindset, which happens every spring. it seemed very intense and expensive, on par with college level courses, and i wasn’t sure i was quite ready for all that. plus i really didn’t feel like i could afford it. i applied for a scholarship but didn’t get it, so i moved on, deciding to spend some time working on my own.
during this time i actually made one of my favorite abstract pieces i ever did, a small 10″x10″ canvas board piece that for some reason gave me beach vibes. i entered into the art2life international juried online art show but didn’t get in. the piece has since sold though, via etsy.
enjoying this period of exploration, i did continue to take free 5-7 day classes from various online teachers to keep me going. one of them was jessica serran’s 5 days to jawdropping art. i didn’t have high hopes with that title but i took it anyways just to experience a different teacher’s style, and i ended up making one of my favorite pieces from any class i ever took. the assignment required us to quickly emote on paper, not thinking much about what we were creating, and then we were to transform the piece in some alchemical way, i.e. burning it, pouring water on it, tearing it up, etc. and then use that to make a new piece. i chose to tear mine up and was at first very challenged but eventually got into the flow and made something that really spoke to me. it still hangs on my studio wall.
jessica’s free class was of course promoting her longer paid course, which was pretty compelling but just didn’t feel right to me in the moment. around the same time i discovered louise fletcher, a uk abstract painter and teacher; i took some free classes from her to see if i liked her teaching style. she had been a student of nicholas wilton’s and gone through cvp and now did her own thing. i decided to join her monthly subscription community called art tribe for a few months, which offered a lot of masterclasses and interviews and a community for feedback and camaraderie. i eventually took the plunge to take her longer several month course find your joy, in the fall of 2023. it was twice as much as spark but half as much as cvp so seemed the right next step. i LOVED the class and made more than 80 pieces of art in it. it was very freeing and opened me up to all kinds of ways of painting. i didn’t really make a lot of “finished” pieces in the class but i really appreciated her teaching style and the course. i had a little open studio holiday sale at the end of the class and sold a lot of the work and recouped about half of what i paid for it, which made paying off the rest of it doable.
after find your joy, i floundered around on my own for a while. but in the spring of 2024 i finally decided i was ready for and needed cvp. somehow i’d managed to come up with the money to pay off find your joy, so i had faith the universe was pushing me along and i took the plunge on my first cvp. it was a whirlwind and an overwhelming 12 weeks but i learned a lot and loved it. i petered out in the last weeks of the class however due to work, jazzfest, and just life, and for some reason never went back to the material even though we had access to it for a year. below are some of my favorite journal sessions plus a few of my 12″x12″ boards that i ended up liking, including the last two which were throwaway boards. i have never finished my final series from that course so no pics.
after cvp i played around on my own and worked on a series of 14″x14″ pieces i quite like, most of which incorporate some mixed media collage and fun markmaking. (only these two are finished, the rest are still in process. these will be available in my store when i get it set up.)
and in january of 2025 i took bibby gignilliat‘s mixed media online course. it’s a quick, self-paced and not expensive at all exploration of using collage, layering and free expressive markmaking to create fun intuitive mixed media pieces on wood panels. her style and work is very in line with my tastes and interests so it was well worth learning her techniques; it seemed a natural next step after the previous series i’d been working on. i immediately made a few pieces that i like and have several more that are still in process. these pieces will also be available in my store when it’s complete.
that leads to me now, which is finishing up my second cvp! i had to check out of the class about 2/3rds the way through due to my work schedule so i’m not done with the coursework yet and haven’t shared much of what i’ve done in the class yet, but stay tuned!
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