Join the Waiting List
Build-a-Beast
with Me
Learn to paint fantasy creatures in watercolor and create your very own fearsome monster! Join the wait list!
Why this course?
- This is the perfect course for beginners. I will walk you through the basics of watercolor and help you get comfortable with this wonderful medium.
- Learn creature design and imaginative realism: We’ll start by painting watercolor portraits of your favorite animals, then take things to the next level by making them into fantastical beasts! This course focuses on creativity, creature design, and imaginative realism.
- Learn to take your work from the sketchbook to your living room wall or even a gallery showcase. I will walk you through each step of the process and explain how I approach my gallery paintings.Â
Join the waitlist for an exclusive early-bird discount when enrolment opens.
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You used to make things. Then life got in the way.
Perhaps there's a box of paints on top of the wardrobe. Perhaps you keep saving ideas and never starting them, because starting means it might turn out badly. I know that feeling very well — I'm a recovering perfectionist myself, and the way out wasn't getting better. It was giving myself permission to make something rubbish on purpose.
- You miss making things and can't remember how to begin.
- The blank page is the scariest part, every single time.
- You'd like to try intuitive, no-plan making, but don't know where to start.
- You have no studio, no spare room, and about an hour on a Sunday.
- You'd rather enjoy the making than produce something frameable.
We're not here to paint well. We're here to find out how good it feels.
Break the material rules
Brushes are optional. We print with vegetables, draw with cocktail sticks, stain with turmeric and tea, roll paint with a bottle. Proper art materials are welcome too — they just don't get special treatment.
Follow your hands, not a plan
Intuitive making, taught as a set of small prompts rather than a mystery. Each session gives you one thing to try and one decision to stop worrying about.
Nothing has to be good
No critique, no finished-piece pressure, no unpicking. If a page goes muddy you turn it over, or cut it up and use it in the next one. That's the lesson, not the failure.
Hi, I'm Rachel!
I have always loved making things by hand, or using my sewing machine to craft larger textiles, quilts, bags or aprons. The pure and simple act of piecing different fabrics together and allowing all the natural wonky imperfections to remain, is endlessly satisfying to me.
Even if I do attempt to make the same thing, it will never be identical. So, I suppose, because of that, all the creations you see on here are unique. Whatever little creature, bag or purse I make, you can be sure there will not be another quite like it.
As a recovering perfectionist, I am now finding so much joy in embracing the imperfections and differences in the things i make. Many of my creations are a mixture of shop bought fabrics and recycled old curtains or clothing, like the lining of the pouches or parts of the fabric friends. It seems crazy not to do that, since I read somewhere that globally, there is enough clothing in the system to clothe the next six generations of people.. So, where possible, I like to repurpose these rejected fabrics and breathe new life into them.
Originally from London, but I currently live in Nottingham, with my husband, my two children and our beloved pets: Mille (pictured), and Barney & Nutmeg, our two cats, who continue to inspire many of the creatures I make. When i’m not making, I’m probably with my family, home-educating the kids, out in nature or head deep in a book.
Ready to begin?
Your beast is waiting
to be made.
Join the waitlist for early-bird access and a special discount at launch.
JOIN NOW