Now is an ideal time to focus on creativity and expanding your own artistic practice with a fun online art course. It is six years since I launched the first Explore Colour course and I have enjoyed researching and developing a variety of courses based on my own experimenting and exploration, combining mixed media materials, techniques, subjects and creative processes. I’d like to tell you more about the next one starting soon.

Explore Shapes in Ink and Watercolour: 29 March to 19 April
This course was launched last summer and I am offering it only once more as a live option before I move on to develop new courses. I aim to make my them all simple but challenging with an emphasis on expanding creativity and developing new techniques.

Is it for me?
Attending an online course is obviously different from doing one in person. Here are some questions and answers to see if it is suitable for you.

What is Explore Shapes in Ink and Watercolour? 
It is a three-week long course exploring traditional and alternative techniques in water-based media on paper. The course is structured to develop a vocabulary of new shapes and creative mixed media techniques through manageable daily art projects. 

What is the format?
Explore Shapes has fifteen daily projects and three bigger weekend assignments on Saturdays, all posted on www.explorecolour.com. There are three live demos in the closed Facebook group: these compliment the course and are a way for me to interact directly with all of you. The live demos can be viewed afterwards as videos in the Facebook group.

Time: I live in a different timezone. How does it work in practice?
Projects are released daily at 9am British Standard Time. They are presented in short video format as well as a written guide with photos to show processes.

How much time do I need?
The projects can be done in around 30 to 60 minutes depending on your previous experience. You can access projects at any point during the course and for two months afterwards.

Will I get feedback?
A private Facebook group will be setup just for this course group. This is the place where you can post work, ask questions and network with everyone else on the course, from around the world. It is an important component of the course and it's where I give feedback on work posted. 

What can I hope to learn?
The course’s eighteen projects are perfectly suited to expand creativity by exploring traditional and alternative techniques in water-based media on paper. The course is structured to develop a vocabulary of new shapes and show a variety of techniques in mixed media and offer ideas in manageable daily art projects. 

Can you explain more about the course content?
Projects will start off with simple shapes from a variety of everyday sources. Inspiration comes from geometric shapes, organic forms found in vegetables and fruit, handwriting, letters and more. By combining traditional art materials with innovative 'outside the box' thinking, new directions are explored.

The topics for projects range from fabulous fish to flowers, hats, paisley patterns, landscapes and more. The course also has three bigger weekend artwork assignments based on the techniques shown during the week. 

How long do I have access to the course?
Once the course ends there will be a two months additional access to allow for catching up and repeating projects. 

Courseworks and Feedback 
I am always amazed at what gets created from course material. Have a look at the work from students from the last Explore Shapes course as well as feedback from the group.

This was super fun and your teaching style is gentle and engaging. K.C.

Thank you Este for a wonderful course, your inspiration, support and encouragement, and for your generosity in sharing your learning and skills with us. Thanks also to everyone on the course for sharing your work, ideas and encouragement. I have learned lots and feel I have a wealth of new ideas as well as super, new materials, which I never knew about before, to carry on experimenting with. Look forward to joining you again. A.B.

Channeling my inner 5 year old in this project, I had so much fun. S.F.

First of all, this class is so fun! I am learning loads and for lack of a better term, this class has been a bit of an awakening. It has been a long time since I have painted. I mostly work digitally—this class has been a wonderful experience. I feel like this watercolor class will inform a lot of my work going forward. I am enjoying this class so much—hoping you will put together another class soon! K.C.

This project made me look at landscapes in another way! What can I do with it! Which is a huge step forward for me! Thank you so much for these fantastic course, so many interesting subjects on which I can work on! The different solutions and views on subjects! These were all valuable lessons! E.W.

Este thank you, thank you! You put together a fabulous and creative class, I was so excited each day to tackle a new subject. I had days of frustrating starts but really embraced the struggles. J.O.

I want to thank you for the course as it has been a really positive learning experience for me.  Coming from a higher education background professionally, I really appreciate the time thought and energy you have put into it. There seemed to be nothing overlooked and I like the way you support people in building their skills whilst allowing them to have creative freedom.  None of this is easy to do (especially with creative people) and I think you are a very talented and empathetic educator. J.A.

Thank you for your time, energy and patience to produce such an awesome class. N.M.

This course has opened me to a new approach to making art which I find both challenging and exciting.I would like to thank you for being so open about passing on your knowledge and expertise and putting yourself all in during your classes. Looking forward to any future class or prompts with you! A.M.

For more information, please see the Explore Colour website. Registration is £150 (about $170).