Class Description
Mixed-Media Fantasy Illustration
Instructor: Christina Romeo
5 Lessons
Class Dates: February 25 – March 6, 2025
Jump headfirst into a whimsical, narrative-driven world of watercolor illustration! This class will guide you through techniques to create captivating characters and surreal scenes using a variety of materials, embracing the joy of intuitive imperfections.
What you will learn:
• Watercolor, collage and illustration… a perfect trifecta! Experiment with watercolor, rubbing alcohol, ink, colored pencils and collage elements to finesse your piece. Create depth, texture, and visual intrigue.
• Embrace the unexpected: Discover “happy accidents” through playful and intuitive mark making.
• Narrative through composition: Arrange your characters and elements within a composition to tell a whimsical story. Explore the use of negative space, perspective and focal points to create engaging visuals.
• Fast and Slow: Combine loose and free painting with meditative linework and detailed patterning to bring your images to life.
Check out this article about Christina: https://purehoneymagazine.com/christina-romeo/
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Class Itinerary
Lessons are prerecorded and are available at 1amPT on the following schedule:
Lesson 1 – Tuesday, February 25
Lesson 2 – Wednesday, February 26
Lesson 3 – Friday, February 28
Lesson 4 – Tuesday, March 4
Lesson 5 – Thursday, March 6
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Lesson 1: Watercolor Backgrounds & Mark-Making
We will start off by using watercolor to create backgrounds for a base for eventual illustrations. Play with color, relax into the process, pick the colors you LIKE, the colors that speak to you intuitively. Use rubbing alcohol to create whimsical texture and amorphous shapes.
Lesson 2: Inking Techniques
In Lesson 2 we will spend time in our sketchbooks with just pen and ink and practice different types of illustration techniques such as hatching, stippling, scribbling, varying line thickness and depth. This will be a time to settle into a more meditative activity.
Lesson 3: Developing The Compositions
Here we bring out your characters with ink and add texture to create dimensions, use stippling to create shadow work and fill in areas for contrast. This is where we emphasize the iterative process of going back and forth between texture and line work. We will utilize a hand mirror to see possibilities in our compositions.
Lesson 4: Start Bigger Painting
Now we’ll go bigger! Apply watercolor with big and expressive strokes, avoid overworking the paint. Add your rubbing alcohol and experiment with more mark-making with your brush. Again, the hand mirror is your best friend here. Then, start inking!
Lesson 5: Mixed-Media Finishes
Today we will look at all three paintings with fresh eyes, adding details, depth and integrating collage elements and other media to your pieces. At the end you will complete two small and one larger illustrations.
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For a full list of the supplies you will need, see the tab titled “Supplies” located just under the video screen above.
