IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES

Art Troop No. 5 | Series 2 is the next chapter in this beloved animal illustration series — five new projects, five new skills, and five more reasons to fall in love with small-scale watercolor. You'll work through a pride of lions, a solitary octopus, a pillow-fort of kittens, a journey of giraffes, and a donsey of gnomes, each one built around a specific technique that expands your creative range. Along the way you'll learn to draw and paint overlapping objects, build visual depth through glazed layers, master the notoriously tricky liquid frisket, trace as a legitimate drawing tool, and discover how to finally put those "ugly" palette colors to beautiful use. Five subjects, five skills, one course that picks up right where Series 1 left off.

UNLOCK A NEW SKILL

With a background in graphic design and fine art, I create illustrations that tell hidden stories. What makes this series distinct is the way each subject stretches a different corner of your skillset. The lions teach you to paint with the colors you've been avoiding — those warm, earthy, seemingly boring hues that turn out to be exactly what a lion's mane needs, and exactly what your palette has been missing. The octopus goes deep into unifying washes and sequential glazing, where a single transparent layer over the whole piece can pull everything together. The kittens teach you to build a believable pile of soft, stacked forms using color and value alone, no outlines required. The giraffes bring in liquid frisket — one of the most unpredictable tools in watercolor — and show you exactly how to use it with intention rather than hoping for the best. And the gnomes put it all together with confident mark-making and mixed-media detail that gives each little character its own personality. These are the skills that quietly make everything else better.

BUILD YOUR CRAFT

Each of these five projects was chosen because the subject and the skill are genuinely inseparable — you can't paint a convincing pile of kittens without understanding overlap, and you can't get those glowing giraffe spots without learning to resist. That's the design behind this series. Every lesson follows the Study, Prepare, Practice, and Imagine framework, which means you're never just watching and copying — you're building real process that lives in your hands long after the videos end. The techniques compound across all five projects, so by the time you reach the gnomes, you're drawing on everything that came before, creating a depth that shorter classes simply can't match.

WHAT YOU GET

When you enroll, you'll receive a welcome packet that covers everything you need before your first lesson — supplies, orientation, and downloadable handouts so you're set up and ready to go. Each of the five projects then comes with its own PDF handout packet paired with a multi-part video lesson that walks you through the complete illustration from first pencil mark to final detail. The packets include palette references, technique exercises, notes pages, and project-specific tips for each animal. Everything is downloadable and yours to keep.

LEARN OFFLINE, ANYTIME

Every course includes a dedicated Start Here lesson — your personal download hub where all your packets and videos are organized and waiting for you. Save everything to your device and keep learning wherever you are, whenever you want.