Dear Julie: Drawing Classes for Beginners

Dear Carla,

Hi! I want to try your classes but I’m feeling intimidated because I don’t know how draw at all. Which of your classes would you recommend for a beginner? I was looking into “drawing workshop” and “sketching” but I’m not sure if those are for beginners. Thank you! —Julie

Hi Julie

Thank you so much for your email!

So many of our classes are great for people who are new to drawing! It’s our hope that some of these classes allow you to really embrace drawing as something fun to do and that the results can sometimes make us laugh, sometimes not, but it’s always exciting to “see what happens!”

Here are the teachers that have drawing classes or there is a lot of drawing involved, and I’ve put them in order of “less traditional” to “more traditional.” It really depends on your learning style and you can’t go wrong I don’t think with any of them.

Carla
https://www.carlasonheim.com/?s=carla+sonheim&post_type=product&dgwt_wcas=1

Lynn
https://www.carlasonheim.com/?s=lynn+whipple&post_type=product&dgwt_wcas=1

Cat
https://www.carlasonheim.com/?s=cat+bennett&post_type=product&dgwt_wcas=1

Lewis
https://www.carlasonheim.com/?s=lewis&post_type=product&dgwt_wcas=1

Anita
https://www.carlasonheim.com/product-category/classes/anita-lehmann-classes/

I would recommend picking a class that seems most FUN to you… and I recommend this in all seriousness. Choose something that seems like it would be fun to do, not what you think you “should” do first. It will all come in time. 

But which class or teacher gives your stomach a little ping of excitement? That’s the one to start with, I think.

Good luck to you!! Write back if needed…

xoxo
Carla

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NOTE: I wanted to start sharing some of the questions and answers I get. 😀

NEW Paper Mache Sculpture Class!

Paper Mache Sculpture
Instructor: Michèle Landsaat
Class Dates: June 21 – July 1, 2022

Michèle Landsaat is primarily an illustrator and printmaker, and her fantastic paper mache sculptures really are a three-dimensional continuation of her illustrations and narrative prints.

Michèle finds that sculpting her characters informs her prints and vice versa, and it has become an integral part of her art practice. The simple, forgiving nature of paper mache is non-threatening way to reimagine your two dimensional work into three dimensions using basic materials like crumpled newsprint and flour and water. And, its fun! She will show us how to use Japanese paper to finish the sculptures and how to add  line work features.

Here is the promo video:

And samples of her sculptures!

Class Itinerary

The videos are pre-recorded and will be available on the following schedule:

Lesson 1 – Tuesday, June 21
Lesson 2 – Wednesday, June 22
Lesson 3 – Friday, June 24

Lesson 4 – Tuesday, June 28
Lesson 5 – Wednesday, June 29
Lesson 6 – Friday, July 1

Week 1 Lesson 1 – Sketch Your Designs & Make Paper Mache Paste Design your figure… will it be an animal, a person, or…? Some drawing tips and considerations. Make a bunch of quick sketches and prepare your paste, too.

Lesson 2 – Wire, Crumpled Paper & Masking Tape Today you will work on building the initial form of your figure. Shape with wire, using your sketch as a guide, and add multiple layers of crumpled newsprint and masking tape until you are satisfied. Smooth your surface as you go.

Lesson 3 – Editing Your Form; First Paper Mache Layer Cut away and build up places to help shape your form. Add ears and other details with paper and tape. Add your first layer of paper mache with newsprint. Let dry overnight.

Week 2 Lesson 4 – Second Layer & Hanging Hooks Cut away any lumpy areas and create hooks for hanging; then add your second layer of paper mache using Japanese paper.

Lesson 5 – Drawing Features & Third Layer Draw or paint a variety of features to choose from using the media of your choice. Michele will demo using gel pen, colored pencil and acrylic paint. Let these dry overnight. Also, add your third and final layer of paper mache. Let dry overnight.

Lesson 6 – Applying the Features Adhere features to final layer using paste or glue stick. Take your time with this last important step, which will determine the personality of your finished sculpture!

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Go HERE to sign up!

Book GIVEAWAY! “How to Make Mistakes on Purpose” by Laurie Rosenwald!

Hi everyone!

EDIT: The winners have been chosen! The following were randomly picked: Cynthia, Katrin, Anne Schwankhart, JoAnna Crone and Susan Sutcliffe. Congratulations, and thank you, everyone!

We are GIVING AWAY We have given away five copies of Laurie Rosenwald’s brand spanking new creativity book, “How to Make Mistakes on Purpose!” We are working on a class with her which will now run in September.

To enter, please leave a comment here at the blog by Sunday, April 3rd, and we will randomly pick five winners on Monday. International entries welcome.

Thank you!

First Quarter CSP Roundup!

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to just give a rundown of the things that have happened here at Carla Sonheim Presents these first three months of 2022! Here are the top 10 things (with some art I was able to make along the way):

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1. January 4, 2022. Our 2022 Yearlong Class began! This year we have 12 guest teachers teaching wonderful projects, and part of the class is me responding to the guest lessons and doing a Zoom session where we might “take it further.” Also, we are working all year on a folded-out “map,” which incorporate bits and pieces from each of the guest teachers.

My in-process “map,” which includes a tiny “burrito unicorn” (Starheadboy‘s character from Lesson 1).

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2. January 11, 2022. Lesson 1 of the yearlong class featured our first Guest Artist, Starheadboy. We painted stickers to place all around town and created acrylic paintings in his style.

Stickers and an acrylic painting inspired by Starheadboy from the 2022 Yearlong Class.

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3. January 26-27, 2022. Lewis Rossignol flew to Seattle to film his new Procreate class!

Inspired by Lewis, I got Procreate! And made this animation.

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4. February 1, 2022. Steve and I flew to New York City and filmed five different Guest artists for the yearlong: Scott Menchin, Yvetta Fedorova, Katherine Streeter, Selina Alko and Andrea D’Aquino! It was a lot to do in four days, but was able to place a few stickers around SODO “a la Starheadboy.”

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5. February 8, 2022. The second yearlong Guest Teacher went up: Katherine Streeter! She had us make many collages in her style, working both in and out of the sketchbook.

Inspired by both Katherine’s and Starheadboy’s lessons.

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6. February 15, 2022. Our first “regular” class of the year began! “Bright Color Scribble Journal Painting” by Jennifer Mercede was just the thing many of us needed to loosen up and enjoy the process.

A detail from my sketchbook… my “style” but totally inspired by Jennifer’s class!

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7. March 8, 2022. Our third yearlong Guest Artist went live! Stacy Milrany invited us all to go for a walk, observe carefully and curiously, and then make a series of small works inspired by the ideas gleaned from the walk. Super fun.

I have bunnies on my mind due to a project I’ve been working on a long time and hope to announce soon. So my series became inspired by my chasing rabbits.

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8. March 15, 2022. “Procreate with Lewis Rossignol” class begins!

A drawing from imagination using Procreate!

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9. March 21, 2022. Sketchbook Revival began! For the fourth year we are sponsoring Karen Abend’s free event… my lesson was “Stylized Zoom Portraits” and I’ve just loved what everyone has created! It’s not too late to join the fun. Click HERE! (And it’s totally free.)

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10. March 21-23, 2022. We filmed the incredibly talented Laurie Rosenwald (whose class will go up for sale in the next few days).

Here is Laurie in the filming studio (our garage) signing books! Stay tuned for a book giveaway soon!

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Phew! We’ve been busy. I hope you have had a creative start to the year, too!

Stickers & More!

“Stickers” inspired by Starheadboy’s Lesson 1 of 2022 Carla’s Yearlong Class.

All in all, 2021 was a bit of a bumpy road for Steve and me, both physically and mentally. That’s okay, we all have those! But the loopy year nudged me to slow down in 2022 and try to reconnect with my artwork for its own sake a little bit more. I can already feel a renewed excitement!

AND… I get to learn this year from the 12 artists that are part of the yearlong class, and do the lessons myself in order to respond to them in preparation for our Zoom sessions.

Last night I made this batch of stickers a la Starheadboy, our Lesson 1 artist. His lesson was wonderful, I thought… very encouraging and full of wisdom… and, well, stickers!

When Steve placed Starheadboy’s sticker on our neighborhood mailbox to take this photo, he came back in with the biggest grin on his face! “It brightens up the street!” he exclaimed.

We also got a lesson on Starheadboy’s unique way of painting in acrylics.

Here is more artwork from Starheadboy, and you can see more here and here.

Thank you for a great lesson, Starheadboy!

Introducing Stacy Milrany: Guest Teacher for Our 2022 Yearlong!

I am excited to be working this year with Seattle artist Stacy Milrany! I have yet to meet Stacy in person, but we’ve spoken on the phone about her guest lesson for next year’s Yearlong Class and she just exudes positive energy and creative ideas. I love her work and can’t wait for her lesson; we plan to film in February!

Stacy writes:

Most of my work is inspired by observations of ordinary daily life—sometimes the beautiful, sometimes the bitter, sometimes the mundane—just documenting the truth as I see it and remember it. 

I work in a variety of media and especially appreciate those which provide an inherent degree of imperfection and surprise. 

My style has probably developed from an appreciation of candor, color, storytelling, and absurdity. Along with my love of watching human behavior and how we move through this world together—as one giant herd of crackpots.

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For those of you who have already signed up for the 2022 Yearlong Class, thank you! This year we will have 12 full mixed-media lessons from 12 guest artists… plus Zoom sessions to explore the lessons further and draw and paint together in community! Students of our yearlongs are the nicest people around. Please click HERE for more information and to sign up!

Registration is OPEN for the 2022 Yearlong Class!

To sign up, go to www.carlasonheim.com!

Hi!

Welcome to our 10th yearlong class!

Our first one in 2013 was “Year of the Giraffe”;  I just thought it would be fun to spend a whole year during giraffe-related projects! And even though the themes have changed over the years, the idea is always the same: Spend some time every month with each other doing assignments, sharing work and just drawing, painting and collaging!

This year we are asking 12 very special Guest Artists to teach the main lessons. You might know a few of them from past classes like: Henrik Drescher, Andrea D’Aquino and Julie Paschkis. But most of them will be teaching with us for the first time like: Katherine Streeter, Scott Menchin, Yvetta Fedorova, Wu Wing Yee and “Starhead Boy” — plus some surprises and a few yet to be discovered! Reaching out to these illustrators and artists is one of my favorite things to do and I love that we get have lessons from people I have always admired.

I’ve asked the Guest Teachers to create a mixed-media lesson which will include both a warm-up and a main project, and you can expect lessons in acrylic and watercolor painting, drawing and illustration, collage, paper cutting and more! In addition, I have project planned that we will work on together all year long (and will be introduced in the first “Welcome” video January 4th).

A few days after each lesson we will meet via Zoom where I’ll share work inspired by that month’s lesson, demo some drawing and creativity exercises, and then we will continue working together on the month’s assignment or the special project. (It’s also a time to ask any questions and get feedback on works in progress.)

If you’ve taken a yearlong class from me before, you know roughly what to expect! And if you haven’t, I hope you will consider joining our group of like-minded creatives from all over the world!

Carla (and Steve)

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Nuts & Bolts

• Guest Artist Lesson Videos will be available the second Tuesday of each month.

• Zoom Work Sessions with Carla will be on the second Friday/Saturday of each month: 5pm PT Fridays and 11am PT Saturdays and will be recorded for those who can’t attend the live event.

• Community Forum. We will have two private forums (Facebook and Padlet) to share our work and be inspired by the work of others.

• No art experience necessary… really! Just jump right in.

• Scholarships available HERE.

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Guest Teachers

Here are some of our amazing guest teachers!

+ MORE!

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I really hope to see you next year!

To sign up, go to www.carlasonheim.com! First lesson January 4, 2022.

Bring Characters to Life with a New Class from Joe Rosshirt!

https://www.carlasonheim.com/online-classes/from-sketchbook-to-story-bringing-characters-to-life/

From Sketchbook to Story: Bringing Characters to Life
Teacher: Joe Rosshirt

Looking through old sketchbooks is my favorite way to break a  creative block and it is here that I often find little nuggets of gold: rough characters, doodles and even blobs that can become the start of something new. In this class we will use those starts as stepping stones to create a narrative that can develop into a series of paintings, comic strip, picture book, graphic novel, you name it! 

But no worries if you don’t have extensive sketchbooks — we will start the course with some sketching techniques to get you started. Then we will learn ways to simplify and pose characters so they can be drawn again and again, work on techniques in ideation, and then move step by step towards a story. By the end of this class you will have at least one final illustration and, I hope, lots of fun getting there!

Joe

Here are some of my illustrations!

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Class Itinerary

Lesson 1 – Finding Your Character
In this lesson we will learn some sketchbooking techniques and pick a character you would like to develop further. We will then break down this character into simple shapes and play with proportions.

Lesson 2 – Posing Your Character
We will bring volume to the simple shapes we broke down and explore how to use these shapes to create a variety of poses. 

Lesson 3 – Color Studies & Shading
In this lesson we will clean up our character design, experiment with color and create a small completed watercolor piece.

Lesson 4 – Mind Mapping & Thumbnails
Today we’ll do a mind-mapping technique to help us think outside of the box and break away from the first idea.

Lesson 5 – Final sketches
We’ll clean up our thumbnails and develop finalized sketches to help inform the story of our final piece. 

Lesson 6 – Final Piece
Create a final narrative illustration with watercolor and colored pencils.

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Nuts & Bolts 

– The videos for this class are pre-recorded and will be released on the following time table:

Lesson 1 – Tuesday, November 9
Lesson 2 – Wednesday, November 10
Lesson 3 – Friday, November 12

Lesson 4 – Tuesday, November 16
Lesson 5 – Wednesday, November 17
Lesson 6 – Friday, November 19

For more information and to sign up, click HERE!

What is a Good Beginning Class?

Sometimes I receive emails from people new to our site saying they are complete beginners, and which painting or drawing class would be the best to start with.

This is always a hard question to answer, as we are different from many art websites in that we don’t distinguish classes as “beginner” or “advanced” really… almost all classes are suitable for both beginners and accomplished painters alike!

We like to think of it this way:

Imagine going to a movie about Mozart’s life with a friend who knows a lot about Mozart, whereas you know next to nothing. You both go to and enjoy the same movie but for different reasons… you will enjoy learning about his life and career, while your Mozart-knowledgable friend will know the broad strokes already perhaps, but appreciate some of the inside jokes, smaller details, and overall “reminder” of why they love Mozart in the first place. Both “levels” enjoy the movie :).

So I usually ask a few questions to help narrow down which classes to take:

• What are you interested in drawing painting? Abstract? Animals? People? Nature?
• Do you know what media you would like to try? Watercolor, acrylics, mixed media, collage, pencil? 
• Can you list three classes that look most fun to you, and send them to me? Then perhaps we can narrow down a first class!

If you would like help deciding on a class for you, please do email me and I will try to help!

carla@carlasonheim.com

Art Journaling with Pam Garrison!

Art Journaling with Pam Garrison is now open for registration!

Class Dates: October 19-29, 2021

In this class we will create a one-of-a-kind art journal from watercolor and mixed papers. It’s made from a simple, single signature that we’ll hand bind. It’s the perfect place for art play and exploration; an ever-evolving home for your ideas and artistic creations.

We’ll begin by jump-starting your pages and addressing the blank page. Next I’ll show you a simple way to fold and bind your book that you can use to make more journals of any size. We will spend time with watercolors, acrylic painting, sumi ink, dip pen, collage, lettering and more. You’ll leave the class with your own art journal that you can grab and add to as inspiration hits, and I’m imagining the desire (and knowledge) to make so many more one-of-a-kind art journals!

Making books and working in them is a part of my daily art life, and I can’t imagine my art practice without them! In this class we will make a big beautiful art journal filled with possibility and fun where anything goes. This class is for anyone…. art journaling is a perfect compliment to any  type of art practice!

I can’t wait to art journal with you!

Pam

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Class Itinerary

Lesson 1 – Gather Our Papers
Tear to size. Prepare 5-10 with paint and cut and shape edges while unbound.

Lesson 2 – Binding
We will order our pages and design our art journals, then create a binding template and bind our books using a simple pamphlet stitch.

Lesson 3 _ Pen Play
We’ll begin to play on the pages! I’ll demonstrate how I respond to the randomly prepared pages and discuss how I approach working in art journals. Including dip pen and ink and miscellaneous black pens, markers and colored pencils.

Lesson 4 – Wet Media
We’ll continue to play on our pages adding “wet media” like water color paint and acrylics. We’ll respond to previous marks and discuss working in no particular order.

Lesson 5 – Addressing the Blank Page
There is no need to fear the blank page or feel like you need to “know where it’s going” nor “finish the page”. We’ll use reference materials as inspiration and collage elements.

Lesson 6 – The Cover
I’ll demo approaching the paper cover spread using sumi ink and brush and acrylic paint and share my color palette formation.

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– The videos for this class are pre-recorded and will be released on the following time table:

Lesson 1 – Tuesday, October 19
Lesson 2 – Wednesday, October 20
Lesson 3 – Friday, October 22

Lesson 4 – Tuesday, October 26
Lesson 5 – Wednesday, October 27
Lesson 6 – Friday, October 29

Click HERE for details and to sign up!