What to Expect

Thanks for checking out Easy Does It, a guided art community with me, Brit! If you haven't seen them yet, here's the invitation which introduces everything, and here's a bit more on what this space is about.

I'm a community taught artist who started doing this as an adult. I think the only actual art class I've taken was in 4th grade. I was homeschooled then, and I went with a few friends to an artist's home every other Thursday for 4 hours. She had a garage converted into a studio to hold her eclectic and maximalist art supply collection: she had pottery wheels and basket weaving supplies, paints of all kinds, buckets of charcoal, piles of collage stuff taller than I was. The first few months she would show us each week how to do one thing. Then, as time went on, the studio visits turned into free time as we each found what we liked to do and began into projects all our own. The artist was there to offer ideas and integrated instruction as we created. I really like learning this way and have been thinking about how to facilitate an online open studio learning space like this.

Easy Does It is designed to be like this artist's garage: part class, part mentored creative space. I hope much of what I share will be widely applicable to anyone interesting in being creative. To start I'm going to be working with paints, but will move into introducing and demonstrating other media as time goes on. You can start with paints, or with whatever you have, whether it's color pencils (a lot of direct overlap) or a guitar (less direct application, but still connected to the same creative principles).

Members will have access to all of the following elements

loaded with stories, images, and distilled art advice. Here are the kinds of pieces that I will be writing:

• One big Monthly Guide, published early in the month, which will hold ideas and reflections on creative practice and a step by step demonstration of something I am painting/making with cues if you'd like to follow along and make your own. If you follow me on Instagram, you can think of this core article as a fully fleshed out version of the painting process stories I do which intermingle writing about how I am making the art with some of the reflections and philosophy behind it.
• Q&A round ups. Members are welcome to send in their questions at any time and at least 1x/mo I'll sit down and share proper answers with photos and everything as needed. I've answered hundreds of questions over the years on IG which have disappeared into the DM and expired-story abyss and I'd like to start collecting them together in a high quality resource.
• Additional Try It post(s) where I'll guide you through another way to apply or practice the main idea of the month, offer free reference photos, or host some kind of (totally low pressure, process oriented) art challenge, but I don't worry I won't call it a "challenge"! An art endeavor? An art moment? Something like this.
• Materials post(s), which may be general introductions (such as "What is gouache and why does Brit love it so much?") or a review/recommendation for a particular product. These will be specific and practical and over time will progress from intro info to more detailed and advanced write ups.
• Reflections on making. This is the kind of personal writing that I feel closest to and have been sharing already on IG and in the newsletter. I'll voice my stories and my ideas here. I'll share links to things that move me, show you photos of things I'm working on and share openly about where I'm flowing, where I'm stuck, and what is helping me through.
• I'll also intermittently share some theory - ideas that make art easier to do. Perhaps a bit on color theory, drawing, perspective, how to use reference photos, mixed media tips, etc. I anticipate that topics will be spurred by Q&A questions that need a more expansive answer.
• Every post will go directly to you as an email as well as being available here on our home base page. You can continue the discussion on our Discord if you'd like to ask questions or share about what you're trying.

Art Live with Brit!

• Each month I will do a 45-60 minute live painting session where you can hop on, paint/draw along, ask questions. I also anticipate we will, like, hopefully chat and become friends.
• The topic of the live will be related to the core idea of the month and will be the perfect way to go deeper.
• It will be held at 12pm PST on a Saturday toward the end of the month (dates published well ahead of time). I'm hoping that 12pm PST has a chance of working for people in many parts of the world and thought we could start with this.
• If you'd like to check it out, sign up at the Light Tier and join us!