By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• Identify the different parts of plants, their different forms and their function in supporting growth.
• Investigate how the structure and composition of soil and compost are fundamental for plant health.
• Explain how the growth cycles of different plant types and the key maintenance the gardener needs to give them.
• Assess the different growing conditions experienced by plants and adapt cultivation techniques accordingly.

• Draw objects out of your head
• Draw realistic light and shadow
• Understand the fundamentals of art
• Draw perspective drawings
• Draw the human face and figure

• Guidelines to help you with your visual journaling
• The importance of practicing these skills
• Ways that visual journaling can work for you
• A better sense of yourself and your internal experiences

• How to draw the sphere, the cube and the cylinder in any orientation in space.
• How to properly draw objects in perspective.
• How to break any form down into its basic volumes so you understand how to draw it believably in perspective.
• How to create the illusion of three dimensional volumes existing in deep space

• How to use the pencil like an artist
• How to draw any shape
• How to analyze and draw any subject by simplifying it into basic shapes

The cuties we will create are a:

• Hedgehog
• Owl
• Frog
• Snail
• Bear
• Fox
• Bunny
• Raccoon
• Squirrel
• & Deer!

• How to paint using naturalistic, expressive and experimental styles
• How to create still life, landscape and portrait paintings
• How to use mediums such as acrylic and watercolour paint
• How to use visual literacy to interpret artworks
• How to use the creative process to create original ideas

Like drawing, creative writing, or musical performance, the ability to paint is a skill that can be learned and refined over time, by anyone. In the 24 lessons of How to Paint, taught by award-winning artist and professor Ricky Allman of the University of Missouri–Kansas City, you will get the art school experience from the very first demonstration. Not only will you learn how to select your tools and apply techniques, but you will also develop the visual skills and muscle memory that make painting an infinitely adaptable form of artistic expression. From understanding your painting surface and which brushes to use to utilizing reference images and learning the proper way to layer oil paint, you will join Professor Allman as he leads you step by step through hands-on demonstrations, with clear, illuminating explanations supported by numerous helpful graphics. As you move through the lectures and follow Professor Allman's tutorials, you will:

• Become familiar with a variety of surfaces and discover how to choose what will work for you;
• Learn how to use value, texture, color, perspective, and other tools to achieve amazing effects;
• Compare and contrast working with oil paints and acrylic paints;
• Explore both the technical and intuitive elements of painting;
• Understand how to select subjects and compose elements; and
• Look at different ways to approach painting still life, portraits, landscapes, and more.

The 36 video lessons of How to Draw offer you dynamic and comprehensive training in the art of drawing. Your teacher, David Brody, Professor of Painting and Drawing at of the University of Washington, brings more than forty years of study, studio work, and dedicated teaching to this course, demonstrating an inspiring teaching style and limitless insight into the learning process. This brilliantly designed course takes you step by step through all of the key elements that, taken together, form the art of drawing. Through Professor Brody’s presentation and your own studio practice, you’ll study the core principles of drawing, such as line, proportion, composition, value, light and shadow, texture, color, and figure drawing. You’ll also study many of the groundbreaking Renaissance methods used for realistically depicting illusionistic space on a two dimensional surface, including empirical and linear perspective. Throughout the course, you’ll take lessons and inspiration from dozens of master drawings from history’s greatest draftsmen— artists like Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Thomas Eakins, and contemporary masters such as Richard Diebenkorn and Norman Lundin. The result is a richly enjoyable and effective system for learning this remarkable art.

In The Complete Painter: Lessons from the Masters, you’ll learn to paint using the same steps taught at the best art schools around the country. Your teacher, David Brody, award-winning Professor of Painting and Drawing at of the University of Washington, begins with the basics, taking you on a fascinating deep dive into the physical properties of oil paint itself, including how to work safely with hazardous materials. From there, you’ll move into the study of marks, lines, brushstrokes, and edges; value, color, and palettes; and how to prepare your canvases and rigid supports—including how to transfer the required underdrawings that are provided in your course guidebook. Next, you’ll study techniques by copying from some of the world’s most iconic paintings. Throughout this course, your professor guides you in your work, painting right along with you during the exercises—illustrating everything from how he mixes and thins his paints to paint application and removal. But this is not a paint-by-numbers course, nor will you see your professor start and finish paintings in real-time. This is a course for those who are motivated and energized about learning to paint, for those who understand that acquiring a depth of “behind-the-scenes” knowledge will be more valuable in the long run than mimicking every stroke of a teacher.

No matter what your personal living-off-the-land dream looks like right now, and whether you have 100 acres all to yourself or you live in a city apartment, Pioneering Skills for Everyone: Modern Homesteading will bring you closer to that dream than you ever thought possible. In 24 exciting lessons with field demonstrations, you will learn how to grow a wide variety of produce in raised bed gardens or in back porch containers, the basics of soapmaking, how to pickle or ferment vegetables, the fundamental hand tools you will need for any project, and so much more. Your guide, Professor Greg Pryor, knows every facet of modern homesteading and is clearly excited about the subject, presenting the information in clear, step-by-step language. Not only does Professor Pryor hold a PhD in zoology and serve as Professor of Biology at Francis Marion University in South Carolina, but he also lives on a 130-acre homestead and was raised in a rural setting in a home his father built with his own hands (and where he still resides today). Homesteading is not something Dr. Pryor learned from a book. His experiential, hands-on approach makes Pioneering Skills for Everyone more than just an intellectual approach to homesteading and gives you the real-world experience of living off of the land—no matter what that means for you personally.

• Understand the fundamentals of drawing, hachure (hatching) and shading
• Realistic hachure with charcoal and pencil
• Realistic shading with charcoal and pencil
• Draw human face features and figure
• New techniques and structures to learn portrait drawing with circles and ovals
• Draw perspectives
• Draw hyper realistic with pencil and brush (eyes, nose, lips, eyelashes, eyebrows, ears, hair, hands, feet, legs )
• Draw realistic with blending stump
• How to use brush and charcoal/graphite powder to draw hyper realistic portrait
• Introduction of shadows and different volume
• Photo-realistic blending techniques
• Photo-realistic texture techniques
• Artistic and creative approach to create an artwork
• Learning how to use your techniques and creativity to draw in an artistic way

In these 13 lessons, spanning more than 20 hours, you will learn how to get the most from the tools of the trade you’d find in a typical woodworking shop. Mr. Vondriska walks you step-by-step through using the tools that every beginning woodworker should own. You will learn how to plan and build items that will showcase your woodworking skills while creating practical items that can be used every day, including storage solutions, jigs, and fixtures. And since no woodworking course would be complete without several projects to hone your skills, this course includes over a dozen undertakings, including designing:

• a rolling material cart with pegboard storage,
• a two-sided game board for tic-tac-toe and last man,
• a complete set of intricate wooden chess pieces,
• a pair of planters for your garden that double as seating, and
• a cabinet with an acrylic panel door that hangs with a French cleat.

This hands-on and practical course is made in partnership with the Woodworkers Guild of America, an organization that believes in feeding your passion for wood craft with new techniques and inspiring ideas delivered by some of the best woodworking instructors in the world.

• What creativity means to you and simple, everyday ways to use it
• Career expectations, goals, and ways to use your unique skills
• The importance of community, and how to build friendships that last
• Healing and the power of moving forward, without forgetting the past

• How to edit a scene to best tell your story,
• How to create a convincing foreground, middle ground and background,
• How to simulate atmospheric depth in your sketches,
• How overlapping and line weight help imply depth and distance,
• How to combine and balance these techniques to create a dramatic sense of depth.

• Create a variety of basic stitches, including French knots
• Use stitching to create different textures, color gradients, and dimension
• Prepare your fabric, hoop, design, and needle and thread
• Create a complete (and beautiful) floral embroidery

• Choosing the right supplies for the process
• Preparing and drying your paper to set the foundation
• Selecting your botanicals for your artwork
• Exposing your prints to create the final piece

• Flood cookies neatly and smoothly
• Build on a base layer of icing with different flooding and fill techniques
• Use stencils for clean, cute designs
• Use a combination of techniques to create complete cookie designs

So, roll up your sleeves and get started with Do-It-Yourself Engineering, 17 enthralling DIY projects in 24 half-hour lessons—from ancient catapults to modern flying machines, from a motor-powered crane to a mechanical clock. Some of the most astounding projects you’ll experience include:

• Suspension bridge: A suspension bridge spanning eight feet requires two towers roughly five feet high. By calculating the stresses experienced by the structural system when it is fully loaded with pedestrians, you can design and build a light, strong bridge with readily available hardware.
• Skyscraper: An ideal introduction to the engineering of tall buildings is a tower structure built with just a few sheets of cardboard, which can be fashioned into sturdy columns, beams, and braces. A properly engineered tower, three feet high, can support more than 100 pounds of bricks stacked on top!
• Airplane: The Wright brothers built a wind tunnel to develop a wing design for their airplane. So can you, using an ordinary house fan. Your model aircraft will also need a propulsion system, three-axis stability, and a means of controlling its flight path—problems you can solve with the aid of elementary aerodynamic theory.

Your instructor is award-winning educator Stephen Ressler, a DIY addict and Professor Emeritus from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a long-time Great Courses favorite.

• The fundamentals of joke structure and script writing
• Using visual storytelling to help you get weirder faster
• Assembling your cast and crew without breaking the bank
• Trusting your gut and connecting with your audience

• How to create and save your own colour palettes
• How to sketch out your subject
• How to use patterns and traditional media brushes to give personality to your image

Learn different creative approaches for commercial shoots, editorial spreads, and passion projects. Gather the gear—and the perspective—to bring your photography to new heights.

• You will know how to take amazing photos that impress your family and friends
• You will know how the camera truly works, so you can take better photos using manual settings
• You will know how to photograph in different scenarios like family portraits, landscapes, aerial, product, wildlife, and much more
• You will know how to compose images beautifully with basic photography rules
• You will know how to light your subjects with flash and natural lighting
• You will know how to edit your photos like a professional
• You will know how to make money with photography
• You will know how to take better photos with your smart phones

• How to replicate professional digital photography with your iPhone.
• How to take stunning photos by utilizing shot composition.
• How to optimize iPhone settings for taking the best photos.
• How to professionally edit photos with Lightroom (free) on your iPhone.
• How to utilize surrounding light to propely light your subjects.
• How/Why the best photographers tell stories in their photos.
• How to take more impactful photos of people, landscapes, architecture, and more.

• You will know how to take amazing photos that impress your family and friends
• You will know how the camera truly works, so you can take better photos using manual settings
• You will know how to photograph in different scenarios like family portraits, landscapes, aerial, product, wildlife, and much more
• You will know how to compose images beautifully with basic photography rules
• You will know how to light your subjects with flash and natural lighting
• You will know how to edit your photos like a professional
• You will know how to make money with photography
• You will know how to take better photos with your smart phones

• Create an effective treatment for your project
• Build a prioritized gear and shot list
• Spot a great location and scout it comprehensively
• Use natural light and existing setups to your benefit

• Spot the perfect hero shot from among your images
• Use color, scale, and contrast to expand on your message
• Edit in Adobe Lightroom with a narrative in mind
• Ensure your images tell a story individually and together

• Jump Cuts to convey the passage of time
• Filming in slow motion for humor or impact
• Incorporating text for humor

• Visual storytelling. Marte Marie uses light and simple compositions to create beautiful, evocative food and lifestyle photos. In her series of lessons, she invites you to her beautiful cottage to discuss her artistic process. You will follow along as Marte Marie selects, styles, and shoots two scenes – a "breakfast story" in her kitchen, and an "afternoon tea story" in a local pub. Whether you are creating visuals for an Instagram feed, a website, or for print photo journalism, you will leave Marte Marie's lesson inspired by this detailed look at how she creates her work.
• Creating your own. Marte Marie will ask you to submit three photographs that tell an "afternoon tea story" of your own, however you conceptualize it. The setting can be any environment you choose and the details are yours to decide. You can use whatever camera you have on hand – even if it's one attached to an iPhone! Afterwards, if you want feedback, you will have the option of uploading your work to share with Marte Marie and the rest of the class.
• Dynamic still-life photography. You will learn how to highlight people, capture conversations and showcase flavors using Marte Marie's simple photographic techniques. She will explore how mood boards keep her eyes fresh and inspire her color and light decisions, and she will share the secrets she relies on to make her best shots "come alive."
• Working with light. Light is the most important tool that Marte Marie uses to tell her visual stories. You will learn how to "live in the shadows," to create moody works by playing with light, directing where it hits, or blocking it out entirely. Marte Marie will discuss simple ways to test lighting to build the kind of atmosphere that lets your subject take center stage.
• Finding the story. You will watch as Marte Marie demonstrates how she hones her visual stories to express only the most pertinent and important details. She will discuss how she keeps compositions simple but effective, simmering down the essence of an on-location journalism photo or beefing up an at-home still-life to create beautiful, focused photographs every time.
• Food styling. Marte Marie shapes her visual story with keywords that keep her photographs on-message. You'll learn important visual style rules like the "element of three" and how it helps make even quick compositions feel dynamic. Marte Marie will also touch on how the height of objects plays into how she styles her work, and how she uses household items to keep setting and lighting simple. Using her tips, you'll keep the focus on your food – not the background!
• Simple tools. Marte Marie's method is quick, simple, and approachable, and her toolkit is the same. She will touch on how she uses iPhones and cheap camera lenses to capture images for web and print – and what mobile applications she depends on to process her work on the fly, too!
• Depending on the details. In food and lifestyle photography, visual details can make or break an image. Marte Marie will bring your attention to the smallest choices she makes – about crumbs, flour, and butter texture – that help create rustic, moody shots and threads them together to make a visual story out of individual photographs.

• Train your eye to see the nuances of light.
• Teach you how to shape light in a streamlined 5 step method
• Apply all of the lessons in the real world by bringing you into a food and interview shoot of a private chef in Italy

• Capture authentic candids
• Utilize blur to convey motion
• Find compelling angles for "look-up" shots
• Try techniques at night

 Learn how color, scale, form, and texture can help you express ideas and communicate with others. Leave your self-judgment and fear behind—the world is waiting for your art.

Design and build your own skyline! Expand your imagination, master the fundamentals of Design and Architecture. Let's dive deep into Frank Gehry's creative process.

Taught by accomplished artists, the 34 lessons—divided into five modules—of Sketching People, Places, and Landscapes will teach you to:

• Sketch lively urban spaces pulsing with movement, providing step-by-step guidance for drawing bustling streets, impressive buildings, and more.
• Simplify any cityscape to capture the character of your favorite urban scenes as you get tips to sketch building façades, textures, windows, and much more.
• Develop your drawing skills as you learn to capture the world around you in expressive compositions.
• Sketch breathtaking landscapes with confidence using fundamental pen, ink, and watercolor techniques.
• Master three simple steps for quickly sketching scenes with accurate perspective, lifelike proportions, and beautiful color.

 

• How to draw any shape.
• How to observe and analyze any subject.
• How to draw any form by breaking it down into basic shapes before adding dark lines.
• How to use light lines and basic shapes to lay an accurate foundation for finished drawings.
• How to hold the pencil.
• How to bring your drawings to life with detail and texture.

• Understand human anatomy
• Draw human anatomy in dynamic ranges
• Understand muscle insertions
• Draw a simplified skeleton
• Draw figures from a variety of angles

• Draw any kind of art from your imagination
• Understand drawing fundamentals and concepts like a pro
• Draw shapes and add perspective to your artwork
• Draw using shading and light to improve your art
• Draw gestures that look natural and realistic
• Complete your drawings with color
• Know how to use composition in your drawing
• Become confident at drawing, even if you're a complete beginner

• Draw the human form from any angle or pose
• Draw the muscles of the human form
• Pose the human form
• Draw male and female figures
• Draw the figure without using reference
• Have the ability to create a figure from their mind
• Never have to rely on clip art or copy another artist's figures for reference
• Improve your figures
• Understand the principles of anatomy from a stick figure to the skeleton to the muscles and variety of the human form.

• Use basic shapes to easily construct drawings and outlines
• Develop a real understanding of light and shade
• Gain mastery of shading techniques to create the illusion of depth and form
• Create drawings in one-point, two-point and three point perspective
• Create a realistic drawing using just six pencil techniques
• Understand the basics of portraiture by creating a child portrait