In the midst of stay-at-home orders and an excess of free time spent at home, online art has never been so accessible. Online resources have dramatically increased in the last few weeks in an effort to keep art alive even in the time of quarantine. Art museums and schools have made the transition to online and many previously digital services are offering discounts to promote their services.
Bluprint
Bluprint is an online platform that offers a mixed bag of different types of arts-and-crafts classes for all skill levels. They do offer paid memberships for full access to their site, but they also have a wide variety of free classes in a myriad of subjects. Each class is expert-led and breaks down the process it is teaching in a way that is easy to understand, regardless of experience. Bluprint has classes on drawing, watercolor, quilting, crocheting, homemade masks, embroidery and jewelry — for free. Access to any of their videos requires either a free or paid membership for different levels of access to their site. They are currently offering 50% off on their year-long paid membership program.
Will Kemp Art School
Will Kemp serves as a modern-day Bob Ross with his positive demeanor and calm voice as he explains each painting and drawing. His online art school is chock-full of video tutorials teaching all different types of paintings and drawings of nature scenes, fruit, people and even Monet. He offers hundreds of free painting classes all on YouTube for anyone to enjoy. His videos are mostly for beginners, but offer a wide array of painting and drawing styles and techniques. Within each video, he begins by explaining what tools are necessary to recreate the piece alongside him. There are dozens of videos on his YouTube channel that range from an hour in length to a quick, three-minutes. His website also has free articles about his tutorials and extra in depth art classes that can be purchased.
LACMA Learn
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is attempting to make the most of their museum closure by offering online classes for free. So far, they have uploaded two tutorials to their website: building a city out of paper and learning Chinese painting styles. Each week, a new video is uploaded on the museum’s YouTube channel with a different art tutorial. So far, they have uploaded 12 tutorials to the channel, with even more on the way. They have created tutorials of everything from collages out of household objects to homemade stained glass windows. Each tutorial is built for any skillset, any age and many of them can be completed with things that are commonly found around the house.
Skillshare
Skillshare serves as an extensive library of video art lessons from highly trained professionals. Skillshare has been offering digital art classes for years and has cultivated hundreds of videos covering animation, design, photography, writing, drawing, music, embroidery, floral arrangements, jewelry and almost any other form of artistic expression one could imagine. There aren’t very many free options, though they are currently offering the first two months of a membership for free and they run scholarships for students that offer up to 50% off of a membership with a short application.
Art consumption and creation has changed drastically to keep up with the ever-changing times, but, even in the midst of a global pandemic, it can be found. Whether it be in an effort to pick up a new hobby or to fine tune a previous skillset, there are hundreds of services online to cover almost any imaginable art form.
