FRESH AND FABULOUS FLOWERS
$99.00
- Class is Open! Self-Study!
- Instructor – Natasha Ruschka
- 8 Lessons/8+ Hours of Instruction
- Lifetime Access/Downloadable Content
- Private Group
- Course Price – $99USD
Description
Would You Like to Learn How to Paint Beautiful Floral Pieces, in a Loose and Painterly Style, Full of Life and Fresh Color? Seeking Expert Guidance that Demystifies the Complexity of Bold Statement Pieces into Bite-Sized Building Steps?
Join Natasha Ruschka in her online class, FRESH AND FABULOUS FLORALS where your confidence and skills will blossom and enable you to seemingly “grow” breathtaking statement pieces in front of your own eyes. Natasha will share her step by step processes to capture beautiful blooms, through a series of confidence building sessions covering concepts and principles, techniques and tips, all the way from bouquet composition to final painting. Learn how to simplify brush strokes so your piece stays loose with movement and energy. Understand why and how to use colour temperature and saturation to capture the light. Follow along with multiple paintings from start to finish, where you will also learn to embrace “happy accidents” by not correcting too quickly and understand the joy in letting colour and value do the work. Leave this course with a repeatable process that can be followed in all of your artwork, big or small. We hope to see you in class!
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course students will have an understanding of the following concepts:
- Arrange flowers to create a successful composition for a painting
- Mix a wide range of values to create the illusion of depth and light
- Understand color saturation and temperature to create clean, bright and harmonious color
- Learn to simplify what you see so it can be easily broken down into values, colours and brushstrokes for the canvas
- Play with mark making and learn the importance of energy in brushstrokes to impart vitality into your paintings
- Use painting studies to build confidence and creativity
- Follow a simple alla-prima oil painting process that is repeatable across a variety of sizes
- Understand how to break up a large painting into logical steps across multiple painting sessions
COURSE IS OPEN! IMMEDIATE ACCESS!
Lifetime Access - Download All Content
Cost - $99USD
DESCRIPTION OF LESSONS
LESSON 1 - GETTING STARTED
This class starts at the very beginning before you’ve even picked up a brush. We look at arranging flowers for a successful painting composition and how to capture photographs we can paint long after the flowers have died. I showcase a gorgeous bouquet of flowers that we will reference and use throughout the course and discuss why I chose the particular flowers for this series of paintings.
LESSONS 2-4 - VALUE AND COLOR IN FLOWERS
We cover fundamentals here, such as value, colour and brushwork but in the context needed to paint florals. I show how to mix subtle value shifts across a value scale and why they are essential in a painting. I walk you through mixing the colour wheel as well as my personal split primary palette of warm and cool colours for florals. You will discover the tricks of each pigment on my palette and both how and why I use it. We embrace mark making and different ways to use a brush, infusing energy into brushstrokes, as well as simplifying what you see into a limited palette consisting of a few colours, values and brushstrokes. These are important exercises that build the foundations of my, more complex floral paintings.
LESSONS 5 AND 6 - FLOWER AND FOLIAGE STUDIES
Studies are a great place to practice all the fundamentals from the previous lessons. We use these small paintings as a safe place to practice and hone your skills, before attempting to paint the whole bouquet. I select some flowers and foliage reference photos from the original bouquet and step you through our practice and play sessions.
We will follow my contemporary take on the Masters alla-prima oil painting methods, that is simple, repeatable and scalable, from a small study to a larger painting.
These studies are quick and easy to do regularly and form part of my painting practice. Even though they are a learning and confidence tool, they often form a beautiful collection.
LESSON 7 - PAINTING THE BOUQUET
Everything has been building up to painting this beautiful bouquet. You have already practiced painting the flowers, mixing the colours and values and making the marks and expressive brushstrokes. Now you can put it all together as the final bouquet.
You have the option of using the reference photos from my bouquet, or if you’re feeling more confident, painting flowers you source and arrange yourself. Either way, you will see how all the previous exercises come together in a logical, repeatable manner, to support a final composition.
LESSON 8 - SCALING UP
I’ve added in a special bonus for those of you who like to paint BIG!! I demonstrate the painting process from a large statement piece perspective. Watch as I follow all the principles that we went through earlier related to colour, value and brushwork but from a grand scale perspective. Seeing the process “blown up” lets you see how to manage any scale within the same painting process.
COURSE IS OPEN! IMMEDIATE ACCESS!
Lifetime Access - Download All Content
Cost - $99
MEET NATASHA RUSCHKA - ARTIST/INSTRUCTOR
Hi, I’m Natasha and I’m a Brisbane Australia based artist who creates colorful and painterly oil paintings. My passion for oil painting started when I lived in Colorado and immersed myself in the Denver art community learning to paint oils in the "Alla Prima" (direct painting) style. I love the buttery texture of oils and enjoy the process of mixing colours in this tactile medium. Painting wet on wet is how I produce fresh, loose and visible brush strokes that give my paintings a playful energy.
I enjoy transforming simple life subjects into colourful scenes that are bright and happy and capture on canvas the often missed beauty around us. Taking a simple object like a piece of fruit, a flower or a tea cup, and transforming it into a beautiful and interesting vignette with only oil paints feels like my very own superpower. Since returning to Australia the native flora and fauna of my homeland has been inspiring my work. I enjoy creating large expressive florals, light infused still life scenes and loose painterly landscapes.
I teach a weekly class in my local community which is the highlight of my week. I absolutely love to see my student’s confidence grow while they learn and have fun painting in my classes. I believe anyone can paint, and everyone has their own unique style waiting to be expressed on a canvas. I am thrilled to be able to share my joy of painting with you now through Kara Bullocks’s online school.
PRIVATE GROUP JUST FOR YOU!
This course will have a private Facebook group just for you! I will be actively involved with the class via Facebook during the FIRST four weeks that the course is open! I am really excited about working through these exercises with each of you!
MORE WORK BY NATASHA
COURSE SUPPLIES
Below is a list of the supplies that I will be using for the projects in this course. However, you are always encouraged to use what you have on hand.
Substrates
- Exercises: For the exercises, I recommend painting on inexpensive panels or oil canvas paper size 8 x 10 inches
- Small Studies: You may like to paint on a canvas or panel for the flower and foliage studies. A quality substrate prepared with gesso will make it easier for your brush to glide and won’t absorb as much paint.
- Painting the Bouquet – Stretched Canvas. 10x12, 20x24, or 25x30 inches will all work. Pick the size you are comfortable with. I painted on a 20 x24 inch gallery-wrapped stretched cotton canvas.
- Bonus - Scaling Up – 36 x 36 inch gallery-wrapped cotton canvas
Brushes
If you have already been painting for a while, use what you are used to. Make sure you have a variety of small, medium, and large.
Here is what I will be using:
- 1.5 inch flat for toning canvas and blocking in on larger paintings
- No. 12 Synthetic Bright
- No. 10 Synthetic Flat
- No. 8 Synthetic Flat
- No. 4 Synthetic Flat
- No. 4 Bristle flat for edges
Paint
Oil Paints:
Reds:
- Transparent Red Oxide
- Cadmium Red
- Permanent Rose
Yellows:
- Cadmium Yellow (or Cadmium Yellow Light)
- Indian Yellow (or some other transparent yellow)
Blues:
- Phthalo Blue
- Ultramarine Blue
White:
- Titanium White
- Naples Yellow (used as a warm white)
Optional:
Black:
- Black Paint (optional…. – you can use a tube of black you already have or otherwise learn to mix a Black in the colour and value lessons)
Medium
- You can use a separate container of solvent as a medium. You only need to dip the corner of your brush in. A little goes a long way.
- On the larger paintings, I used a mix of half and half linseed oil and solvent.
- I also recommend Gamsol Galkyd Lite as a fast-drying medium or Gamblin’s solvent-free gel as an alternative for easy portability.
- You will also need a small bowl or jar lid to put your medium in so you can dip while you paint.
- I explain why you need the mediums and mixes during the class.
Other
- Acrylic Gesso Primer
- Large 2-inch paintbrush for painting Gesso on substrates
- Palette
- A palette for mixing oil paint – I’m using a paper palette pad and
- Metal Palette Knife for mixing paint
- Solvent to clean brushes
- I recommend you always use an odourless mineral spirit like Gamsol
- A glass jar or container for putting solvent in, to clean brushes (like a recycled pasta sauce jar)
- Rags or Paper Towel
- Absorbent rags like old towels are great for absorbing any extra solvent left on your brush after cleaning.
- Paper towels and rags are also useful for wiping brushes between colours.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON ACCESSING CLASSES AND SELLING WORK CREATED IN THIS COURSE:
**Upon purchasing your course, you will be asked to create an account and go through the purchase process (even if the cost is $0 for a free course). If you have already created an account, after purchase your course will IMMEDIATELY be available under “LOGIN” at the top right-hand of karabullockart.com.
**If your course does not show up, please email us at karabullockart@gmail.com
**Due to the nature of the immediate availability of the course, all purchases are nonrefundable.
**Please talk to the artist of the course about his/her policy on selling artwork created in this course prior to selling any works created during course. Some artists will allow it, while others do not. Thank you for your support.
Miss Sharon Whittle (verified owner) –
Having recently done this course I enjoyed it and learnt alot ,it helped me to revise the basic principles of painting flowers especially colour and value.
I found it very easy to follow and very informative and really enjoyed Natasha’s gentle and calm approach.
Would highlybrecommend this course . Thankyou so much Natasha?
Heather Simmons (verified owner) –
I really loved this class, with great content right from fundamental colour theory and mixing, to simplifying and rendering a very large complex subject, using expressive loose brushwork. I think it would suit absolute beginners right through to more advanced artists who want to explore floral art further. Thanks Natasha!
Mieke Palschek (verified owner) –
This course can be recommended to anyone who loves to paint flowers and is looking for improvement in their work. The videos are very instructive and learns you to look better at colors, values, brushstrokes and composition. I am adopting the lessons I’ve learned in my other work and see it improve also. Natasha provides good reference material, photos that you can use, but you can also work with your own pics as a reference. The comments and feedback from Natasha in the Facebook group was also very helpful.
Sandra (verified owner) –
I have learnt so much in such a short time! Being a beginner with oils, it has given me confidence right from preparing the canvas, using the colour wheel to mixing colours and layering with values. The step by step approach allows you to build your confidence. Your feedback is invaluable. Thanks Natasha. ?
Diana Ayoola (verified owner) –
Amazing Course. Natasha is a great teacher and she does through colour value, composition, breaks down the steps so you can tackle paintings of various sizes and various flowers while keeping your palate simple. Highly recommend this course!
Christina Adkins (verified owner) –
This is one of the best oil painting classes I have ever taken, and I’ve taken quite a few. You know it’s good, when everyone’s paintings came out so beautifully! I highly recommend this one.
carolinthesky (verified owner) –
Fabulous Flowers is a fabulous class! Natasha is very generous in sharing everything to consider to achieve fresh floral paintings. Surprisingly valuable!
Evelyn (verified owner) –
Really a wonderful course!
Natasha covers so much and so well in very understandable steps.
I had so much fun with all the classes!
I’m so looking forward to taking all I’ve learned and trying out new compositions ?
gloria.bardell (verified owner) –
One of the best classes I’ve ever watched, have learnt so much! Thank you Natasha, hope you make another one soon !
Antoinette Holtzhausen (verified owner) –
I learned so much about oil painting and really enjoyed this course. I’m so excited to see there is a new one! I highly recommend this course for beginners of oil painting and everyone that want to improve on their skills. Thank you so much Natasha it was really worth it!