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Course Description

Measure twice, cut once!

If you’ve ever heard that before, it’s an age old tip for saving time and materials in construction. What does that have to do with artists?

Well, for artists who are feeling like they’re not standing out in a crowd, have imposter syndrome, or are feeling stuck for inspiration, this course gives you a clear path that keeps the mind from guessing what color, value, stitch, pattern or stroke should go where. It helps to get it right the first time, saving valuable time and materials. Having the idea ready to go also increases your ability to talk about your work more clearly, write about your work, and start developing your brand quickly. It will ultimately allow your voice to shine. In this course, we’ll follow my process into narrative development as a group and complete the story in your own medium and style, followed by a critique of your final piece.

This will give you a solid roadmap into developing your own personal story and the narratives you want to share.

What You’ll Learn:

Breaking down an overall idea into manageable, tangible actions.
Deciding on a clear final narrative.
Development of good composition to support that narrative.
The use of photoshop or AI in composition for representational art.
Using the elements of art like color, shape, line and value, in ways that create emotional support for the narrative.
Writing an artist statement and speak about your work.

Supply List

Sketchbook
Pencils and pens
Your medium and substrate for final piece. Keep it small and manageable to be done in a 2-3 hour period.

Instructor Bio

Crystal Rassi is an award winning, internationally collected artist who’s been painting throughout her lifetime. Her journey began in a small prairie town in Saskatchewan, Canada where she was always either drawing, designing residential architecture, or building forts out of sticks and snow.

After three years of university studies in fine arts in Alberta and Saskatchewan, she decided to switch her degree to design with a concentration in architecture at the University of Manitoba where she received her bachelor’s degree. During her time as a designer and detailer, she raised her family with her husband in Saskatchewan for 13 years while also painting, showing and selling her work and teaching art in her community. Prairie culture and landscape were a major theme in her art during this time.

A life would have it, the pandemic greatly affected their life and a door opened in the West and they moved 14 acres in one small truck to North Vancouver, where she now practices art full time and teaches art part time at her local recreation and culture centre.

Her work has always had a some significant narrative but a few years after graduating from architecture, her work primarily focused on developing concepts of home using representational images of residential architecture to be transformed by different environments. Paying no literal attention to scale, these homes became metaphors for different statements in each series and iconic symbol in her work.