Classes

Create a Garden and Nature Journal

By / December 18, 2020 / Classes

A few years ago, I started a new garden journal on the day after the winter solstice–the first day of the new year, according to the sun, anyway. My intent with this particular journal was to document everything that was blooming or changing in Washington Park, the beautiful park just a couple blocks away from my house in Portland.

Of course I didn’t document everything–it’s a 458-acre park–but I did fill that sketchbook over the course of a year. And that process led to this class.

You can take the class on Skillshare, which is a membership-style platform like Netflix. Use this link to get a free trial and check out everything Skillshare has to offer.

On Skillshare, this class is actually two classes: Painting Lively & Vivid Greens, and Loose & Expressive Flowers & Leaves.

You can also take this class on Udemy, where you pay per class rather than a monthly membership. Here’s the link to take the class on Udemy.

Here’s a bit more about the class:

When it comes to creating a garden or nature journal, there’s so much that you can explore with paint and ink.

In this class, we’re going to focus on creating a complete garden scene, with a variety of plants and even a little structure peeking out from behind the foliage.

And in order to do that, we’re going to tackle one of the most challenging aspects of sketching the natural world: quickly mixing a variety of greens.

I’ve taken a lot of art classes over the years, and I think that sometimes painters can get a little too technical when it comes to greens. So in this class I’m going to simplify and demystify greens, so we can get on with our painting!

But that’s not all! Garden and nature journals come to life when you use watercolors to capture the intense, luminous colors you see in flowers, leaves, and other details. So we’re also going to work on ways to really push the paints towards bold, vibrant colors.

We’ll work on loose and expressive pen and ink lines, too. I’m going to show you my approach to creating lines and marks and shapes that look entirely original– like something that could only be made by you, at that particular place and that particular moment in time.

What we’re not going to do is get caught up in perfection or rigid accuracy. The great joy of a garden and nature journal is that it is a record of the time you spent in close observation. It’s a place for you to be yourself on the page.

With a little ink and watercolor, and some time to enjoy the outdoors, you can create a lively, personal record of your connection to nature.

Having you been putting off going paperless?

By / January 2, 2021 / Classes

You can take this class on Skillshare, which is a Netflix-style membership platform where you pay a monthly fee to watch all the classes you want. This link gets you a free trial.

Or if you’d rather only sign up for the classes you want to take, this class is also available on Udemy.

It’s the chore on everyone’s to-do list, but somehow we never get around to it: Going paperless.

Whether you’ve been meaning to start moving your household documents to the cloud, or you want to start scanning an automating the paperwork related to your very small business or home office, now is the time!

Every January, I hear so many of my self-employed friends complain about having to dig through receipts and get their records in order before tax time.

So let’s get this done.

Over the years, I’ve figured out ways to make going paperless easier and less intimidating.

We’ll talk about how to tackle a little at a time so you don’t get completely overwhelmed at this big task in front of you.

We’ll figure out what systems will work best for you, and how to put them in place.

I’ll show you how to handle ordinary household documents, like:

House and car records
Tax records
Banking records
Health and medical records
Rental properties
Boats, RVs and other toys
Kids and school records
Pets
Family records like old family photos

And we’ll work on small business records. For this, we’ll dive into:

Scanning business documents and forms that you use over and over
Tracking receipts and expenses
Tracking income
Deciding when to upgrade to a full accounting system like Quickbooks

Whether you’re going paperless for your home, office, or both, we’ll pay special attention to:

Password and internet security
Storing back-ups
Organizing documents so they’re easy to find
Keeping systems in place that will change how you work going forward.

So I made this class for all of you who are still struggling with how to go paperless without losing control of all your important records. Let’s go!

Rewrite, Revise, Revisit: A Guide to Editing Your Book

By / November 27, 2020 / Classes, Writing

 

Have you finished a first draft? Congratulations! Now the fun begins.

Every writer knows that editing is the most important part of the writing process. This is where all the really important, meaningful work happens.

It’s where you have the most control, and the ability to really carry out your intentions and make this into the kind of book you set out to write in the first place.

In this class I’m going to give you a toolbox for approaching every edit, and every revision, of your book, including:

  • What you can do in the early stages of editing
  • What’s better to leave for the final stages
  • How to handle the edits you get back from your editor
  • What happens in the copyediting and proofreading stages

This class is for anyone who has finished a first draft, whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, memoir, an essay collection, a how-to guide—no matter what kind of book you’re writing, a top-notch edit will get it ready for publication.

You can take this class now on Skillshare, which is a Netflix-style platform for online classes. This link gives you a free trial.

This class pairs well with Write Your First Draft.

You can also take my writing classes on Udemy, where you pay per class for only the classes you want to take. I’ve bundled this class with another course of mine, Write Your First Draft, and renamed the whole package Finish Your Book. You can take them both together for one affordable price. Go here to check that out.

Are you ready to write your first draft?

By / November 27, 2020 / Classes

Are you ready to start writing your book?

The act of sitting down in front of a blank page takes a certain amount of courage.

It’s a long road with plenty of uncertainty ahead. But you can make a plan to get it done.

This class is for anyone beginning a new book project, whether it’s your first book or your fourteenth, and whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction.

I’m going to show you what I do to write a well-structured, well-thought out, and well-written first draft—and all of these techniques work just as well for rewrites. So even if you already have a first draft, or even just a half-start at a new book, and you’re realizing that what you need to do is to start over and approach it from a new direction, using everything you learned in those early attempts—this class is for you.

You can take this class now on Skillshare, which is a Netflix-style platform for online classes. This link gives you a free trial.

You might also like the next class in this series: Rewrite, Revise, Revisit.

You can also take my writing classes on Udemy, where you pay per class for only the classes you want to take. I’ve bundled Write Your First Draft with my class on revision, and renamed the whole package Finish Your Book. You can take them both together for one affordable price. Go here to check that out.

A New Approach to Color-Mixing for Artists

By / October 4, 2021 / Classes, Creativity, Paintings

 

HERE IT IS! I’ve been promising to do this class on color mixing and the color wheel for a while now, and now it’s done.

You can take this class on Skillshare, which is a Netflix-style membership site where you can take all the classes you want for a monthly subscription. I have over 30 classes on Skillshare. Go here to see the class on Skillshare.

You can also take this class on Udemy, where you only sign up for the classes you want to take. I’ve bundled this class with my class on painting in sepia and working with values, so you get two classes in one. Go here to see the class on Udemy.

Here’s what it’s about: As an artist, you’re probably familiar with the color wheel, with the three primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, and the secondary colors of orange, purple, and green.

But—have you ever looked at a color printer cartridge and noticed that printers don’t use ink in red, yellow, and blue?

Most printed material, including books, newspapers, and magazines, are printed with a different color scheme. This class looks at how the visible light spectrum really works, and explores a new version of the color wheel that was invented over a hundred years ago, but is still mostly ignored by artists.

We’ll look at new ways to mix colors, and explore fresh ideas for building your own palette. I’m going to do my demonstrations in watercolor, but this works in any medium, including gouache, acrylic, or oil paints.

At Last–My Research Class is Here

By / November 27, 2020 / Classes, Writing

 

The question I get asked most often is how I do my research. It’s a tricky question to answer–every book is different, every research question is different, every source is different.

But I did my best to boil it down into one half-hour class!

Whether you’re writing fiction, nonfiction, reported journalism, essays, or memoir, you’re probably going to have to do some amount of research.

We’ll look at how to use scientific and academic sources, and how to track down experts in any field. We’ll look at historical sources, like old newspapers and archives. We’ll talk about genealogical resources, like Census records and other public documents. I’ll show you how I conduct interviews, and when I hire expert help. I’ll tell you how to spot faulty information and keep it out of your work.

Finally, I’ll teach you to be a skeptic! How do you know what you know? How do you verify your facts?

Whatever kind of writing project you’re embarking on, this class will help you up your research game.

You can take this class now on Skillshare, which is a Netflix-style platform for online classes. This link gives you a free trial.

I recommend taking this class along with Organize Your Research in Evernote.

You can also take my writing classes on Udemy, where you pay per class for only the classes you want to take. I’ve bundled this class with my class on using Evernote to keep track of research. Go here to check that out.

Learn All My Evernote Tricks!

By / November 27, 2020 / Classes, Writing

 

If you’re about to dive into a big research project, whether it’s for a book, a dissertation, or some other kind of writing project, you’ll be so much better off if you set up a good system for organizing it all before you jump in.

This class will teach you how to keep track of all your research in Evernote. Writers can also use Evernote to brainstorm book ideas, organize a plot, and keep track of ideas for other professional projects, like teaching workshops.

You can take this class now on Skillshare, which is a Netflix-style platform for online classes. This link gives you a free trial.

I recommend taking this class along with Research: A Step-by-Step Guide for Authors.

You can also take my writing classes on Udemy, where you pay per class for only the classes you want to take. I’ve bundled this class with my class on doing research. Go here to check that out.

Laid-Back Lettering

By / January 1, 2021 / Classes, Paintings

If you want to add more artistic, colorful, dramatic lettering to your sketchbooks, journals, and artwork, but you don’t want to put in the hours it takes to really perfect a hand-lettering style, I made this class just for you!

I love all the beautiful brush pen and modern calligraphy styles I see all over Instagram, but filling out practice sheets and trying to learn upstrokes and downstrokes felt too much like work for me.

So I developed an approach to lettering that I could do without a ton of practice, using more or less my own handwriting and the art supplies I already carry with me.

In this class, I’ll show you how to work with pencil, pen, marker, and watercolor to create visually interesting letters using the same approach to drawing and painting you already use in your art.

I’ll work from examples of the styles I like to use, that fit my personality and my artwork, but I’ll also show you how to find the styles that work for your tastes and interests.

This class is available on Skillshare now! Skillshare is a membership platform like Netflix where you can take all the classes you want to for a low monthly subscription. If you’re not already a member, you can get a free trial with this link.

You can also take this class on Udemy, where you only sign up for the courses you want to take. Here’s the link to see the class on Udemy.

Painting Doors and Windows with Ink and Watercolor

By / December 22, 2020 / Classes, Paintings

My new class is live on Skillshare! Go here to preview the class, and this link also gives you a free trial on Skillshare, which is plenty of time to check out everything they have to offer.

You can also take this class on Udemy, where you just pay for the classes you want to take. I’ve bundled this one with another travel sketching class also set in Mexico. Go here to see this class on Udemy.

One of my favorite subjects to paint is old painted doors. They have so much character and they really tell the story of the place.

There are a few challenges that are particular to drawing and painting doors, including:

  • Getting the proportions right
  • Conveying a sense of depth
  • Figuring out a way to depict faded paint and crumbling stone without overworking everything
  • Including just enough of the elements that surround the door without taking away from your main focus

In this class I’ll show you how I approach my paintings of doors.

We’ll go step by step, starting in pencil, then moving on to ink and finally watercolor. I also add a few highlights with white acrylic paint pens.

I’ll give you a few of my own photographs of doors for you to work from, but I hope you’ll go through your photographs from your own travels and paint a door that you fell in love with during your own travels.

Create Your Own Book Video

By / September 4, 2021 / Classes, Writing

It’s here! I’ve created a step-by-step guide for authors who want to make high-quality videos about their books. The class is live on Skillshare now. Skillshare is a Netflix-style membership site where subscribers can take as many classes as they want to. This link will give you a free trial to access to all the classes Skillshare has to offer.  

You can also take this class on Udemy, where you only sign up for the classes you want to take. Go here to see the class on Udemy.

As the author of over a dozen books, both fiction and nonfiction, I’ve found that book videos can be useful at every stage of the publishing process, including:

Pre-publication marketing meetings with the publisher
Press kits and media pitches
Marketing to bookstores and libraries
Lining up speaking engagements
Reaching readers and book clubs
Promoting backlist titles years after publication
Fortunately, the technology is so easy that anyone with an iPad or other tablet or smartphone can shoot a high-quality video, add photos or video footage, make simple edits, and publish to online platforms.

This class walks through every step of the process that I use to make videos to promote my books. I’ll show you all the equipment and free software I use, and walk you through every step of the process I use.

For those of you who have different equipment and software, I’ll suggest alternatives. The basic concepts are the same no matter what you use to make your video.

This class will also work for anyone who wants to make a talking head-style video interspersed with photos and video clips on any subject at all, but my examples are all going to be specific to book videos.