Artist and Art Teacher Jenny Buchanan standing with demonstration paintings from her courses

Blue Beach House Art School

My clear, detailed and easy-to-follow online video lessons will help you to create realistic paintings in acrylics so you can realise your dreams of artistic success - Jen

 

Start any time, work at your own pace and return to the lessons as often as you like

Here's what students love about my online courses

Simple seascape student painting by Dawn Heald

The course was informative, well explained, easy to follow

...and a nice personal touch with quick direct feedback, help and suggestions. Well worth the minimal cost to help me decide if I want to buy the whole course ... which I now do.... but even if I didn’t want to go any further I still have ended up with my learning that I can reuse and a very nice painting I’ve done myself 😃"

- Dawn Heald

Paint Stunning Seasca

Fantastic Information and Techniques

"Easy and extensive instructions to follow and I'm now that much more confident to create my own beautiful art pieces. Thank you Jenny" - Margaret McCulloch

Wicked Wave Painting Workshop painting by Judy Stephen

WWW gave me a great outcome

"I’m very impressed with this course, and indeed the other BBH Art courses I have done. Jen is a great teacher, who was able to lead me to finish a painting that I’m very happy with, and to which I’m proud to put
my name . The instructions are well set out and easy to follow and the videos make it so easy to go back to check on something whenever you want.
As a former teacher in the creative arts area, I think BBH Art workshops are excellent and I highly recommend them" - Judy Stephen

Frequently Asked Questions

Jenny Buchanan, artist and art teacher

 

Hi, I'm Jenny Buchanan and I have made it my mission in life to help as many people as possible find the joy in art that I have.  Since 1997 I have been creating art, selling my work and teaching painting in acrylics.

As much as I would wish it otherwise, there is no set formula to follow when it comes to painting. When mixing colours, for example, I can demonstrate the proportions of colours to use but I can’t give you a measurement of how much of each colour to add to the mix. Therefore, trial and error is always going to be a part of your artistic process.

I can assure you that even the most accomplished artists on the planet sometimes get frustrated with their work and feel like throwing it away. The difference between a successful artist and those who give up, though, is that true artists use mistakes as an opportunity to learn and to grow.

The 4 step process for acrylic painting that I teach in my courses keeps the amount of trial and error you need to do to a minimum.  I call the process my step ladder to success   It's kind of like a kids' video game where you can keep on progressing through the levels until you reach the end.   However, if something should happen to go wrong along the way you only need to go back to the beginning of that level, not all the way back to the start.  The step ladder to painting success is a repeatable framework you can follow for any artwork you may choose to create now or in the future.

I believe that understanding both the how and the why of painting is the secret sauce.  That's why all my lessons also Include heaps of background information about the elements of art and how you can use them.  I also share all the reasoning I use to make sense of things, along with video demonstrations of course.  My lessons are much more than paint-along tutorials as you are sure to discover.

Art is very personal and the fear of failure can be real.  That's why I offer personalised feedback to my students that is always honest and constructive but delivered in a friendly and supportive way.

I am so proud of every one of the artists in my amazing online art-learning community and I look forward to welcoming you to Blue Beach House Art School, so you can be a part of it too.