Online creative classes for improving your art

Mar 4

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Today I want to share with you a set of online creative classes that have helped me develop my art style, boost my creative ideas and practise my art on a regular basis.

Improving our art is something that lots of us want to work on, and we all know that it takes practise and that practise takes time, but when I was beginning to draw regularly last year I was looking for a little guidance on ways I could practise my creativity and develop my art, and that’s when I found Creativebug.

Creativebug is like Netflix for creative classes and as an indecisive person I love that I have access to everything each month and don’t have to decide upfront. Their classes are a treasure trove of creative exercises and really high quality tutorials by established artists, and I’ve been a happy customer of theirs for close to a year now. I will say though that there are so many good tutorials on there for different mediums and crafts that I now want to do everything all at once (simultaneously taking up crocheting, printmaking and embroidery suddenly seems like a good idea).

Their classes are great if you’re:

Feeling stuck in your art
Not sure how to experiment
Wanting to try new ideas
Looking for step by step art walk-throughs
Wanting advice from established artists
Taking up a new hobby

I wouldn’t be recommending these classes if I didn’t know for sure that they had helped with my art journey, and I really hope that you find them useful as well (use the free trial to give it a go!). Here are some of my favourites:

Daily Painting Challenge:
Flowers, Fruits and the Natural World
- Carolyn Gavin

I’ve been watching these classes this week and I like what Carolyn says in her opening about practising art on a daily basis:

“If you do it on a daily basis it takes away the preciousness of what you’re doing and leaves you time to play and experiment with paint.”

I definitely find that by illustrating regularly it takes away the pressure of being perfect and polished because I know I’m going to have another chance tomorrow or the day after that, so taking risks is no biggy.

Carolyn shows us how to paint natural objects from life using paints and pens, and I love the way she represents the objects so beautifully without obsessing over being accurate.

Take this class

Drawing and Illustration Basics:
Making Conversational Artwork
- Heather Ross

This is one of the most important classes I’ve watched for my art because it reminded me of the power of having story and conversation in illustration. Heather talks about conversational artwork being art that has multiple elements that relate to each other to tell a story.

She says that this gives people an opportunity to relate to your art and makes it more personal and human, and that’s a concept that I love and try to incorporate into my own drawings.

Take this class

Gratitude Art Journal:
A Daily Practice
- Mou Saha

The thing that I really enjoyed about this class is that it’s a mix between gratitude journaling and creative expression, and Mou provides prompts every day as a guide. I chose a couple of the prompts and found it really freeing to not think too much about the colours and materials I was using and just play with ideas and doodles on the page, using just a quote or phrase to guide me.

I really appreciated that this wasn’t an education in creating good art, but rather an encouragement to experiment and express with creative tools.

Take this class

Creative Boot Camp:
Six Exercises to Spark Artistic Discovery
- Lisa Congdon

I really enjoyed watching through the Creative Boot Camp series, especially part 1 (Reinventing the Basics with Lines and Circles) but also would really love to try doing my own messy sketchbook from part 3. The sunshine circles exercise was fun and uplifting and encouraged me to think about new ways of doing the same thing with absolutely no consequence.

I love that this series is about getting back to basics and being messy and I found it really useful for my own creativity.

Take this class

Creative exercises flatlay - sunshine circles

These are my favourites so far but there are so many more I want to try. If you aren’t interested in trying Creativebug for yourself, then here are some key takeaways I’ve gotten from their classes that might help with your own creative experimentation:

Get messy
Try materials that you aren’t comfortable with
Experiment with colours
Focus on expression over perfection
Have fun with it

All of these things have helped me avoid getting stuck with my art, to experiment with new shapes and lines and also to remember that art is a process and it certainly does not have to be perfect.

I want to try these classes, take me there!