Jean Mackay – Birds and Words (Online); Tuesdays, February 4-25, 2025

Date: Tuesday, February 4-25, 2025
Time: 
3:00-5:00 PM Pacific Time, 6:00-8:00 PM Eastern Time, 11:00 PM-1:00 AM London Time
Level: All
Medium: Ink & Watercolor

Supply List

Try your hand at combining text with artwork to lend greater meaning to your sketchbook pages or artwork. “Catch two birds with one seed” as you learn hand-lettering techniques and practice drawing and painting birds in ink and watercolor. Each class will introduce a different approach to adding text, including large letters, poetry, and quotes. You can apply the techniques we’ll cover to many subjects, not only birds, so you’ll come away with new ideas and skills for hand lettering and watercolor painting. Each session will include an optional assignment to practice what you’ve learned and complete a piece of your own.

Week 1- Getting Started

In this foundational session, you’ll learn and practice basic letter forms and ways to embellish text for both printed and cursive writing. We’ll also cover basic bird anatomy, major feather groups, and ways to quickly capture birds on paper.

Week 2- Quote & Catbird

Put what you’ve learned in the first session into practice by visualizing and laying out a sketchbook page using a short quote, a catbird, and loose feathers.

Week 2- Big Text / Bird List

Learn to layout and paint big text and perch a songbird on the large letters. You’ll finish the rest of the page with your own bird list, adding additional birds if you wish to apply what you learned.

Week 4: Poem & Hummingbird Nest

This session builds on the others with a more complex drawing of a hummingbird in her nest paired with a short poem.

Out of stock

Please notify me if a space becomes available or another section of this class is added

$295.00

Jean Mackay is an artist, educator, and naturalist. She has been keeping an artist journal for more than nearly 20 years as a way to study and share the beauty and diversity of nature, as well as to record the art of everyday living. Working in all kinds of settings, from tide pools to farm fields to her own backyard in upstate New York, Jean’s watercolors reflect a keen eye for detail and profound sense of wonder. She is the author/illustrator of The Nature Explorer’s Sketchbook (2020). Jean teaches online and in-person classes and offers immersive workshops nationally and internationally. She has been an instructor with Winslow Art Center since 2020.

About Our Online Classes:

  • This class is taught live via Zoom. To take this class, you need a microphone and camera enabled computer OR an iPad /smart tablet OR a smart phone (android or IOS) and a strong internet connection.
  • You will have access to a private class message board on our website where you can share work, comment and ask questions. (Exact use of the message board, critique of student work and general class format is at the discretion of the instructor, please check course description for details.)
  • Class will be recorded and recordings expire 60 days after the final day of the course.
  • Participants will receive an email with the Zoom link and class details 5-7 days before the class starts (don’t forget to check your junk folder). Zoom link will also be posted in the class message board. Check your confirmation email for a message board link or visit your Online Classrooms to find your active classes.

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