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If you create art regularly, regardless of the perceived quality or originality, trying new styles or techniques is one of the best things you can do for your art practice. I am no different here either. For a while now I was struggling with my watercolor practice and felt like I didn’t get better and maybe I even got worse.. so I did what people usually recommend and tried some new perspective.
Last week I bumped into artefacto school on an IG ad where they offered free online workshop with Anastasia Kustova about water reflections with watercolor. I signed up immediately. I thoroughly enjoyed workshop, and I kept painting different variations of the same reference pictures until I was satisfied with it. And finally, I felt like I got better and found and corrected some basic mistakes I kept repeating in the past.
While you can watch really cool workshops on Domestika or Skillshare, they always cost a pretty penny.. so I thought I put together my favorite places to get some free inspirational workshop/class/course.
Side note: all these platforms offer paid courses by amazing professional artists that are really a good value for your money (maybe one not that much :P). If you can afford it and are interested, your support will enable them to offer free workshops in the future as well.
1. Artefacto.school (artefactoschool.online)
Artefacto is an online learning platform for budding artists. They offer free workshops, paid courses and mini-courses by well known professional artists. You can check their Upcoming Events section on their website or sign up for their newsletter or check them on IG. There are free and paid workshops and courses as well.
2. Etchr Lab Youtube channel (www.youtube.com/@EtchrLab)
Etchr offers different free and paid online workshops and classes on their Etchr Studio website (https://learn.etchrstudio.com/catalog) and on their Youtube channel as well. I find the paid catalog a bit too pricey for what it is.. but the Youtube channel is a really cool source for practice.
3. Art Hustle (arthustle.org)
Art Hustle is a Germany based learning platform for artists. It offers a wide range of watercolor courses. There are some free and many paid courses. They also organize live events online and on-site as well. The courses are for all kinds of levels and really worth trying them. The quality is pretty good!
4. Drawing Dog (drawing-dog.com)
I recently came across to Drawing Dog on Instagram (thank you algorithm!) and I was very surprised how much and detailed their free workshop series are! They are called Marathons and usually run 5 days long. Check their links on IG and sign up for one. Really worth it!
Also, their paid courses are totally worth if you got the money. They are longer, more detailed and you can practice the same techniques across multiple paintings. Which is usually not the case in other workshops/course.
5. Red Point School (redpointschool.com)
Very similar to Drawing Dog in terms of concept and quality of courses. Probably because run by the same company :D On the website you find their paid courses but on Instagram and in their newsletter, you can always find free workshop offers.
Sign up for their newsletter to get to know when they start free workshop marathons.
If you know any other free or paid learning platforms or resources for watercolor artists, leave it in the comment below