Sketchbook Club: Finding your Flow
7 Week Class | Registration opens 2026-10-15 12:00 PM
Sketchbooks are one of the most powerful (and often underused) tools for developing your artistic style and sustaining a creative practice. Through regular sketchbook practice, you will build confidence, strengthen observation skills, and reconnect with the joy of making while discovering what makes your visual voice unique, from your favorite subject matter and color palettes to your preferred modes of making.
Each week introduces new guided exercises and creative prompts designed to explore different ways of making. You will work with a wide range of media, including pencil, charcoal, pastel, acrylic, collage, and mixed media. In-class projects will help you loosen up, experiment freely, and give you pathways to overcome creative blocks.
By the end of the course, you will leave with a fuller sketchbook, a clearer understanding of your personal style, a versatile toolkit of techniques, and a sustainable creative habit to carry into everyday life.
Notes:
- If you previously took Sketchbook Club: Material Exploration for Beating Creative Ruts, this course is filled with all-new activities, prompts, and techniques to keep your practice evolving!
- There will be no class on Monday, February 15th due to the Family Day Holiday.
$375 +
Material fee: $10
= $385 Total
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- What You Will Learn:
- Uncover your unique visual voice and material preferences through tailored in-class activities and creative projects.
- Experiment with diverse artistic approaches and techniques to find the workflow that best sparks your creativity.
- Build confidence creating art more freely, using your sketchbook as a low-pressure space for play, experimentation, and growth.
- Please keep all purchase receipts in case items need to be returned.
- Sketchbook (preferably one with mixed media paper which can handle both drawing materials and gouache/watercolour/acrylics). Above Ground’s Mixed Media sketchbook is a great one. Sketchbook size is up to you!
- Scissors
- Ruler
- Pencil
Fine tipped black marker
Any of the following materials (You do not need to purchase all of these - just bring what you have!)
- Pencil Crayons
- Pastels (Soft or oil)
- Gouache/Watercolours
- Acrylics
- Collage materials (Papers, magazines, glue stick)
A variety of communal art materials will be provided by the instructor through the material fee.
Emily Joyce
Emily is a Toronto-based painter and paintings conservator. She specializes in the study of paint materials, from traditional egg tempera and oil paints to contemporary acrylics and mediums. The crossover of art and science in her profession has allowed her an in-depth exploration of the history and techniques of painters from a range of historical time periods such as the Renaissance, Impressionism and Pop Art. These studies have inspired her classes and workshops at the TSA. Emily has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) with a minor in art History and a Master's of Art Conservation (Queen’s University), as well as a certificate in Traditional Materials, Methods of Painting and Restoration techniques through San Gemini Preservation Studies in Italy. Outside of the TSA, Emily works at Toronto Art Restoration in the west end, conserving a range of artworks from Tom Thomson landscapes to Michael Snow's Eaton Centre’s Geese.