About

...and I love to make art SIMPLE. I'm here to problem-solve the tricky stuff for you, get you back to basics, and build your skills from the ground up. From the supplies we start with to the tutorials I create for you - everything is aimed at quality over quantity, so you can get painting sooner, cos your me-time is precious!

The long story

I live in Melbourne, Australia with my two furbabies: Leo the cat and Rhodie the doggo. I run a bunch of arty businesses including this one, The Watercolour Academy (TWA), along with The Watercolour Factory (TWF) where I handcraft watercolour paint and Black Chalk Collective or @blackchalkco as I'm mostly known around the internet. TWA is where I pour all of my watercolour knowledge, but if you happen to be interested in lettering as well, I'm a teacher on Skillshare and my published book 'Brush Lettering From A to Z' can be found on Amazon or any half-decent bookstore ;)

Things were different not that long ago. I was working as an Executive Assistant and studying towards my Bachelor of Business Management - a busy corporate life with absolutely no creativity. Out of frustration, boredom with my life and desperation for inspiration, I started looking for an outlet. Enter from stage left: art.

Thanks to the internet it wasn't long before I was consumed by all the arty things. I signed up for every online course. Bought hundreds of dollars of supplies I was told I needed. Watched every hyper-lapsed YouTube and Instagram video... but could not get the hang of it.

I decided to go back to basics and REALLY dig into things, starting with colour theory. I used the best quality supplies I could find, but as few as possible, and started building my skills from the ground up. Suddenly things started to click into place. All of the videos and courses were skipping the basics, just showing the good end results but never the mistakes or how to troubleshoot. Now that I had those skills, I could hit the ground running.

I wanted to make sure others weren't making the same mistakes I was, spending hundreds on complex online courses where you only learn the instructors style but no basics, spending hundreds on a huge palette of colours you never use, or an entire collection of brushes you don't need. So I started my online school and taught things my way, which includes sharing the ugly mistakes and how to avoid them.

If you're into frustration-free, fuss-free and FUN-FULL learning... you're gonna have a good time here.

I am also proudly a Winsor and Newton and Princeton Brushes ambassador.