Louise De Masi Starts her first Watercolour Classes on Skillshare

I've been very quiet this year on this blog. Is it really April already? I've been quiet because I've been learning new things. They told me at university that a good teacher is a lifelong learner. So I've been putting that notion to practice..... or is it practise?  Anyway, I've been busy!

Somebody at Skillshare emailed me last year and they asked me if I'd like to consider filming some online classes for their platform. I gave it some thought and decided that I would give it a go.

I made it a goal for 2017 to start filming some watercolor tutorials. That can't be too difficult, right? Talk about a learning curve. First I had to decide what to teach and then I had to teach myself how to teach it. It didn't stop there though. I had to learn how to film myself, how to edit videos and how to add voice over. I also had to overcome my fear of the camera. 

Fortunately my youngest child is a videographer and Dom also knows a bit about filming and editing. So they were able to help me. I had to buy a tripod, a magic arm and a big light with daylight bulbs. I also had to learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro so that I could edit the videos myself. I took a class on Lynda.com that was very helpful and got me going. 

For my first class I painted this yellow rose step by step. I thought it would be great to have my students paint along with me so I included a line drawing of the rose.

Here is the introductory video:

A subscription on Skillshare is very reasonably priced and you get the first month free. You can also unsubscribe at any time. I joined and I've been watching some great classes. 

I published my second class this week. Yes, I'm hooked! 

In the 2nd class I paint three different herbs in watercolor. 

I am currently editing my 3rd class. I'll be demonstrating how I painted this little Robin below in watercolor. 

Filming and editing these classes has been good for me because it makes me stop and think about my process and question myself about what I am doing and why I am doing it. Watercolor is a difficult medium to use. It has a mind of its own and because it is transparent you can't layer other colours over the top and hide your mistakes the way you can with all the other mediums. 

In my classes I try to break down the difficulty level and make it as simple as I can. I will continue to add classes because I'm really enjoying it. I love the feedback I'm getting and I love knowing that I have inspired others to try their hand at watercolor painting. I hope you will join me.

Here's to lifelong learning and sharing!

Update 3 April 2023

I though it would be a good idea to update this post as I now have 13 classes on Skillshare and more than 160 classes on Patreon. Have a look here for more online classes and here for YouTube tutorials and videos.