Anastasia Mak Art courses

This course is designed for artists who want to hone in on their expressive brushwork style. It is a perfect place for you if you are a newbie, or if you do have painting experience but aren’t happy with your brush markings because they are too rigid, too soft, or too timid. This tutorial offers a series of exercises encouraging discovery, playfulness, and practicing your movements in smaller increments. It is designed to prepare you for making future (more planned out) paintings.

Price may go up in the future - that said, Brush Stroke Swagger is a comprehensive exercise workshop designed to prepare you for creating other more planned out paintings. Think of it as a playful workout as opposed to a fancy, choreographed performance. As such, this workshop is engineered to get you painting as easily as possible! Which means: very accessible price, minimal materials, quick set up.

You may end up with a painting that you love (or two or three) - but the focus here is also on starting with practice work that could be easily discarded. First and foremost, you are encouraged to make plenty of mistakes! As I go through the theme of each day, my demo piece in the course gradually becomes a nearly finished, balanced painting. However, we give ourselves full freedom to explore, and no composition planning is involved here. The aim is to get your hand and brain used to all kinds of expressive brush movements!

I encourage you to watch each daily video at least once in its entirety, and then take as much time as you need with practicing that style of brush work on canvas. Your practice commitment can be as brief as 15 minutes per day, or longer if you choose to make it so. You can do your Brush Stroke Swagger exercises as a daily warm-up before creating other art - or, focus solely on BSS for the time being, and begin your other painting(s) later.

The materials list consists of 4 paint colors (3 colors of your choosing plus white), and 3 brush sizes (small, medium large). If you already own paint and brushes, you can use what you have! There are also 2 optional tools (foam brush and palette knife) and 1 optional medium (molding paste). Optional items are not required, but they are briefly demonstrated in videos showing textural applications.

Please don’t think of this course as something that you race to finish. Yes, if you follow 1 lesson per day, it will take you one week to go through them all - and then you’ll have a new arsenal of play-exercises to continue practicing your expressive strokes. Keep up with these regular movements until you enter “confidence zone” with your brush work. When confidence arrives, you can finally let go of the training wheels and - bam! - your Swagger will replace fear in other paintings.

You will have lifetime access to all course materials, updates, and community group. (...But - whose lifetime?) Glad you asked! “Lifetime access” always means “lifetime of the course”. As long as I continue to offer this course (and I plan to for years!) you will remain in it. Due to technology advancements, online courses don’t stay in the digital space for eternity - and if someday this workshop gets retired, all enrolled students will get a 6 month notice so they have plenty of time to complete their work.

I am certain that you will enjoy this workshop, but I also want it to align with where you desire to be in your painting practice! Therefore, you can “try on” the course risk-free. If within the first 48 hours of purchase this workshop does not meet your expectations, please reach out for a refund. (After 2 days post-purchase, we are not able to offer refunds - thank you for understanding!)

Please email your question to: [email protected]. Thanks!