Class: Introduction to Watercolour Painting
Class Duration: 3 x 3 hours classes
Date: 
Saturdays, April 18, and 25, May 2, 2026
Time: 2 pm to 5 pm
Cost: $140
Instructors: Oksana Baczynsky

Description:

Watercolor for Beginners – 3-Week Workshop

Have you ever wanted to learn how to paint with watercolors, or improve your painting skills? This 3-week beginner watercolor course at NewMakeIt will guide you through the fundamentals of watercolor painting while helping you create your own original artwork.

Learn to express yourself through this beautiful and versatile medium while exploring the principles of design, color mixing, and brush techniques. Watch demonstrations designed to inspire your creativity and provide practical tips you can apply immediately.

What You’ll Learn:

• Fundamentals of watercolor painting and materials

• Planning a composition and creating a sketch

• Color theory, mixing, and application techniques
  

• How to translate a reference image into a finished painting

Course Schedule:

Week 1 – Getting Started

• Introduction to the elements and principles of design

• How to start a composition for watercolor

• Painting a value study to understand light and shadow

Week 2 – Color and Technique

• Understanding the color wheel: mixing secondary and tertiary colors, tints, tones, and shades

• Preparing your paper and choosing brushes

• Planning your painting and selecting your palette

Week 3 – From Sketch to Finished Painting

• Translating a reference image into a watercolor sketch

• Applying learned techniques to paint your final project

• Tips for finishing and adding details to your painting

By the end of this workshop, you will have completed your own watercolor painting and gained the skills to continue exploring this expressive medium on your own.

 Oksana Baczynsky: 

My response, to the often unsettling and disturbing realities presented to us in these times of uncertainty, is to search out the beauty that surrounds us and capture it in paint. In sharing my art I hope to provide the same spiritual peace for my viewers.

The beauty and majesty of the Canadian landscape is the single greatest inspiration for my art. The beauty of our country constantly nourishes a great love, awe and inspiration for me, untainted by the harshness we hear and see every day.

The media that I use are primarily transparent watercolour and acrylic.  Watercolour provides the   luminosity of colours and ethereal quality that I use to capture the mood of a scene, the essence of a flower, or the mystery of a figure.  To convey the more rugged aspects of the Canadian landscape I often turn to acrylics for their solid textural aspect and boldness.

I love to travel; whether by car, canoe, or on foot, the experience is, for me, intensely personal.

Whether at our cottage in Haliburton, or travelling from Newfoundland to B.C and as far north as Yukon and Alaska my sketchbooks and paints are always at hand. Frequent stops along my journeys fill my sketchbooks, soothe my soul and provide the foundations for my many paintings. Often, as time and weather permit, I engage in plein air painting. 

My dearest wish is to impart this deeply personal relationship and the completeness I feel with the Canadian landscape,   for the benefit and enjoyment of my viewers.

Location: 

NewMakeIt
621 Timothy Street, 
Newmarket, Ontario 
L3Y 1R3