June 18, 2025

Spring Workshop Series Recap

From bright florals to composing a sketch, see participant and instructor art from this year’s Spring Workshop Series!

By The Art Toolkit Team

Various illustrated sketches of bees and flowers are displayed on a wooden table. Two open sketchbooks feature colorful drawings, including a yellow-tailed bumblebee and various plant species. Art supplies like colored pencils and markers are scattered around, along with a drink in a clear cup.

We want to thank our wonderful instructors, Meagan Dew, Sushma Hegde, Robin Lee Carlson, and Jared Cullum for leading workshops this spring! Enthusiastic participants from each workshop shared their art with us, and we hope you enjoy peeking into these past workshops by way of their sketches. Stay tuned to our newsletter and Workshops page for the next series announcement, and browse our archive of workshop recordings which include these workshops below!

Playing with Composition: Capture Your World Through a New Lens with Meagan Dew

Meagan Dew’s workshop, participants learned about composition and how to make decisions about the placement of subjects when sketching complex or busy scenes on location. ⁠

Meagan encouraged everyone to work at their own pace and to fully embrace the learning process, acknowledging the key role that experimentation and mistake-making plays in gaining confidence and skills.

A collage of watercolor scenes featuring a serene park with a pond, ducks swimming, lush greenery, and city skyscrapers in the background. Highlights include trees, flowers, and park benches.
Meagan’s final sketches from the workshop.
A colorful watercolor illustration featuring various scenes of a park and urban life. The top left shows people enjoying a park, while the top right highlights the phrase "Productive Struggle." The bottom left depicts a building with a flag, and the bottom right features a serene pond, accompanied by the text "What Do You Want the Focus to Be?" in bold red letters.
Maria’s thumbnail sketches and notes from Meagan’s workshop.
A collage of watercolor sketches featuring various urban scenes, including buildings, parks, and streetlamps. The title "Playing with Composition" by Meagan Dew is at the bottom, along with quotes: "Practice makes Progress" and "Productive Struggle".
C J Proctor’s thumbnail sketches from Meagan’s workshop.

Meagan celebrates “productive struggle,” the process of struggling through something as a way of practicing, building muscle memory, and learning something new. We love her perspectives and gentle teaching style: thank you, Meagan for joining us again!⁠

We are excited to offer Recorded Access to all workshops, so if this topic or approach grabs your interest, head to our website to register today!⁠

Register for Recorded Access to Playing with Composition: Capture Your World Through a New Lens with Meagan Dew, and visit Meagan’s page on Instagram to see her artwork and creative offerings.

Springtime Flowers: Practice Brush Techniques and Direct Watercolor with Sushma Hegde

A vibrant watercolor artwork of a bouquet featuring pink, yellow, and purple flowers, surrounded by paint swatches and a palette filled with various colors. On the left, there are leaf and flower sketches in green hues.

This lively workshop, instructed by artist Sushma Hegde, features brush techniques, swatching, and color-mixing to employ in painting flowers and greenery from the garden.

A textured white paper displays various green watercolor strokes and leaf-like shapes, alongside a few colorful flower illustrations in pink and red. A watercolor palette sits partially visible in the bottom corner.
Brush exploration to support intuitive foliage painting.
A collection of watercolor flower paintings on white paper, featuring various colorful blooms in shades of pink, yellow, and red. Surrounding the paintings are artist supplies, including paint palette and green leaf prints.
Playing with petal structures and shape.
A light pencil sketch of various flowers, featuring round shapes for petals and stems, is placed on textured paper. Surrounding the sketch are floral illustrations in vibrant colors.
Composition sketching in pencil.
A vibrant bouquet of colorful flowers, including pink daisies, yellow blossoms, and purple sprigs, surrounded by green leaves. Watercolor paint swatches are visible in the bottom corner.
Sushma’s final bouquet.

Register for Recorded Access to Springtime Flowers: Practice Brush Techniques and Direct Watercolor with Sushma Hegde and visit Sushma’s website or Instagram to see her artwork and creative offerings.

Thank you, Sushma, for bringing your clear explanations and providing us with the building blocks for painting any flower. Watch a recording of her Wildflower Watercolor live demo from October, 2023 with Art Toolkit below to get a feel for her style.

Pollinators in Ink: Explore Contrast and Color in Nature with Robin Lee Carlson

In this workshop, co-reportage artist Robin Lee Carlson guided students through painting bees, using her favorite tools: a Pentel Brush Pen, watercolors, and water-soluble pastels!

Illustrations depicting bee anatomy, including labeled diagrams of a bee with its head, thorax, abdomen, legs, and other features. The top section features abstract lines that may represent landscapes or flight patterns. The artists signature is at the bottom.
Robin’s infectious enthusiasm and delight for the natural world shone through her demonstrations as she taught participants about the anatomy of bees and how to layer rich colors in a sketch.
Various sketches and notes on a wooden table. The sketches include bees, flowers, and anatomical drawings. Nearby, there's a bottle of turquoise liquid and colorful markers scattered around. A printed reference image is also visible.
“Thank you everyone for joining me to draw and learn about bees! I had a fabulous time drawing with you, exploring brush pen and Neocolors, and seeing the bees you brought to life!!” – Robin

Robin encouraged us to leave our exploratory layout lines and sketch marks on the page, leaving a “proof of process” that emphasizes practice and observation over finished painting. It was a delight to have her to instruct this workshop!

A watercolor illustration featuring a bee nestled among pink flowers. The bee has black and yellow stripes, and the pink blooms hang from a branch above, set against a soft green background.
Bee and manzanita sketch by Maria—she sketched as she moderated!
A watercolor illustration featuring a bee clinging to pink flowers with green leaves. The text reads "Pollinators in Ink with Robin Lee Carlson May 31, 2025." A smaller bee is shown flying nearby.
Bee and manzanita sketch by Tina.

Register for Recorded Access to Pollinators in Ink: Explore Contrast and Color in Nature with Robin Lee Carlson learn more about her approach for simplification and sketching in this fun, informative workshop! Visit Robin’s website to see her artwork and creative offerings.

Thank you Maria, Tina, and Robin for sharing the artwork you created during the workshop—we love these little bees so, so much.

Gouache Fundamentals: Learn Essential Painting Techniques with Jared Cullum

Jared Cullum introduced fundamentals of working with gouache with an emphasis on simplification and finding the essential shapes and values in a scene. He encouraged students to take a sculptural mindset with a more opaque medium, gaining comfort with gouache by pushing it around on the page.

Look at an element in the scene, then ask yourself how it compares to those around it: Is it lighter? Is it darker? Is it warmer? Is it cooler? Jared taught how value holds an image together, and can be even more important than color.

Two landscapes depict winter scenes. The top features a muted, icy expanse with gray tones and sparse vegetation. The bottom showcases a vibrant blue sky and golden trees on a snow-covered ground, offering a warm contrast to the scene above.
Jared Cullum’s workshop paintings.

Watch a recording of Jared’s live demo, An Intro to Gouache, from November, 2024 with Art Toolkit below to get a feel for his style.

Register for Recorded Access to Gouache Fundamentals: Learn Essential Painting Techniques with Jared Cullum and visit Jared’s website to see his artwork and creative offerings.

Recorded Access: Art Toolkit Workshops

Register for workshops and learn at your own pace! All of the workshops above (plus six others!) are available via Recorded Access. Learn more on our Workshops page. If you are looking for free resource, we invite you to browse our archive of live demos for creative inspiration this season.

We always love to see what you make during our workshops, so tag us on socials @ArtToolkit! Thank you, and happy painting!
An artist sites on a rock, dipping a paintbrush in a Pocket Palette.

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