The most sought-after drawing workshop year after year….

An Intensive course with lots of detailed technique demos, meaningful assignments and constructive feedback. Informative PDFs prepared by Kim will help students understand the drawing process naturally and logically. Kim’s deep understanding on the medium helps students experience the whole drawing process from a completely different perspective. Many students from the past workshops told that they went through a breakthrough moment via this course.

PDF and Zoom link will be emailed the day before of each session. Classes will be recorded for students to review. 5 Thursdays, 10 am - 1 pm, CT, Fee: $310. For registration, Click Here

Weekly contents and dates:

Week 1: January 9, Understanding tools, light, Tonal Value (Gradation), light and shadow

Week 2: January 16, How to draw 3 major flower types. Measuring techniques for free hand drawing

Week 3: January 23, Perspective and foreshortened form 1 - Flower.

Week 4: February 6, Perspective and foreshortened form 2 - Leaf.

Week 5: February 13, Composition and how to create a scientifically informative botanical drawing.

You Can and Should Control Everything! Watercolor paintings in general look loose and spontaneous, which is the charm of the medium. When it comes to a traditional botanical art/illustration style, however, it is far from being loose and spontaneous. Perfect renderings including ‘clean-but-not-hard’ edges, soft blending and gradation, accurate descriptions of the plant subject in shape, color and texture, etc are critical to create a botanical artwork of good quality.

In this series of three courses, Heeyoung Kim will guide the students with simple, visual, logical and scientific explanations about watercolor painting process, which will help them internalize the techniques naturally.

Suitable for beginners and those who are still not quite sure about how to handle all the watercolor materials and techniques, even after some experiences.

PDF and Zoom link will be emailed the day before of each session. Classes will be recorded for students to review. 3 Thursdays for each course, 10 am - 1 pm, CT. Each course: $190. Register for all 3 courses and get 10% discount ($513). For registration, Click Here and select the option.

Course Contents and Dates

Course 1: April 3, 10 & 17. Fundamentals of watercolor painting. Tools and how they interact under the artist’s control, and how to achieve 3 dimensionality

Course 2: May 1, 8 & 15. Focus on flowers. Practice: Achieving translucency, 3 dimensional form building though smart uses of color temperature. Rich and intense color… edge control and more.

Course 3: June 5, 12 & 19. Leaves with linear and net veins. Intuitive green mixing, painting leaves with various venation types

Continuing Study Group to Develop Independent projects…

The courses in this section are designed for students who want to explore regional naive flora and fauna with broad ecological themes to create their own independent projects with Heeyoung’s instructions.

Who’s eating what? Who needs that? What’s the ecological role of that plant? Most of Heeyoung’s painting subjects for this series are developed from these questions. Students will choose the same or similar native plants and associated faunal elements with advice/recommendations from Kim. Habitats are often included in the context.

Heeyoung’s compositions are usually large and complex, but students adopt the complexity to suit their skill level or time they can devote for painting. Students can participate in this courses regardless of their regions and study their native plants using Kim’s instructions.

Each project: 4 weeks, 10 am - 1 pm, CT. Fee: $250 Click for Registration

Project 1, 2024: Winter Prairie and Birds

• Jan. 23, 30, Feb. 13 & 20

• The instructor’s demo subjects will be Cup Plant as the strong design element and a few grass/rush/sedge species added to fill in the space, and of course winter birds, Dark-eyed Junco and/or American Tree Sparrow. Students will substitute them with local native plants and birds. Students can use watercolor or watercolor with graphite pencil in a similar manner with the demo example. Registration is open now

• If you are interested in joining this ongoing Tuesday Advanced Watercolor Zoom workshop, contact me, please!

Project 2: Life around a Fallen Tree

• Featuring spring ephemerals, mushrooms and Northern Flicker

• April 2, 9, 23 and May 7

• Instructor’s demo subject: Plant: Rue Anemone, Cutleaf Toothwort, Spring Cress, Purple Cress, Blood Roots….. Anything that blooms in your area in early spring can be the subject for this project. Mushroom: Hairy Bracket, Turkey Tail, and others. Bird: Northern Flicker. There will be two breaks between the sessions in order to give enough time for students to catch up with the drawing and painting. Mock-up composition will be sent out after registration. Register Here (choose Project 2)

Project 3: All About Milkweeds

• From drawing to painting, students will learn about the structure of milkweed flower and general growth habit of the fascinating plant.

• Once the structure of the complex flower is thoroughly studied, students will be able to tackle any kind of milkweed in various media.

• June 4, 11, 18 and 25, 10 am - 1 pm, CT. Register Here (choose Project 2)

Project 4: Milkweed with Associated Insects

• Milkweeds with their intricate flower structure and many leaves present challenges to botanical artists. In this workshop students will choose local milkweed species and compose in actual dimension. Various insects that use milkweeds as a host plant or food source will be added. An iridescent beetle variety will be a fun insect to try.

• July 9, 16, 30 and Aug 6, 10 am - 1 pm, CT

• Register Here (Choose Project 4)

Project 5: Sneezeweed, Bees, and Birds

• Sneezeweed is an important food source for a variety of pollinators in fall. The intricate details of the flower is a good subject to further painting techniques. The changing fall plumage of American Goldfinch will be fun to add to the composition.

• (September 3, 10, 24 and October 8)

Project 6: Butterflies and Tree Bark

• Painting overwintering butterfly varieties in cracks and crevices of tree bark or under leaf litter. Workshop attendees will be introduced to the this unique group of butterflies (instructor’s demo species will be Mourning Cloak & students may choose other butterfly). Techniquewise, focus will be on creating bark texture and 3 dimensionality along with details on the butterfly.

• Suitable for advance and intermediate level. Zoom. Sessions will be recorded.

• 4 sessions: November 19, December 3, 10 & 17, 10 am - 1 pm, CT, Fee: $250 Click Here for Registration (Select Project 6)