FRESH AND FABULOUS FLOWERS

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 REGISTER NOW! 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 REGISTER NOW! 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.   PRINT SUPPLY LIST 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 [email protected] **Lifetime Access: When you purchase a class, you will have access to download the course videos and keep them for your personal use for life. While we strive to keep courses available on the site long term, lifetime access does not guarantee that videos will remain streamable on the website indefinitely. From time to time, we may update, modify, or retire older courses to maintain the quality and functionality of the site. If a course is ever scheduled to be removed, we will notify students in advance and provide plenty of time to download the videos. **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.