Have you taken an online class?  How about an online art class?  Think that is impossible?

I’ve been taking a wonderful watercolor class from Sondra Holtzman  https://sondra-holtzman.squarespace.com who has brought me back to basics by first painting color wheels.

 I thought I knew all I needed to know about color wheels, but magically, I found a better way to paint after filling several pages with various versions.

The simple drills that all art students used to labor over (before computers) have opened up new ways of working with this challenging medium. Instead of mixing color on a palette, Sondra has taught me to add color to color on the paper  with delightful, and unexpected results.

Sondra uses watercolor paintings by Winslow Homer as an instruction tool. Just like artists of old, we students copy his paintings, learn how he handled a sometimes-difficult medium, understand his color choices and how he adds shadows and highlights.  

Homer's original

My attempt at Homer

                             

     The amazing part of this exercise is that I am at home, Sondra is at her home, and I send her my finished exercises by email to her. She can then blow them up to full-screen size and see what I have really produced. Besides, she is a lot of fun to work with – we have even skyped during this class – old hat to many of you, but new to me.

Have you tried something out of the ordinary lately?