Painting Brush Strokes with Soul and Story
Painting Brush Strokes with Soul and Story
A Beginner‑Friendly Gouache Course in Narrative Painting
Painting Brush Strokes with Soul and Story is an invitation to paint with intention, presence, and meaning.
Designed for complete beginners, this course gently teaches gouache techniques alongside a deeper understanding of how story emerges through light, gesture, colour, and restraint. Rather than illustrating a scene, students learn how to create emotional conditions where narrative can be felt and imagined.
You’ll learn how to work with light, brushstroke, colour, and restraint to create paintings that feel soulful, personal, and alive — even if you’ve never painted before. No prior painting or drawing experience is required.
Everything you need to begin —
gently and confidently
A gentle, beginner‑friendly online course in gouache painting, rooted in presence, story, and meaning. You’ll learn essential gouache techniques while exploring how narrative emerges through light, brushstroke, colour, and restraint. No prior painting or drawing experience is needed — just a willingness to slow down and paint with curiosity and care.
Lifetime access to the complete beginner‑friendly gouache course
Lifetime access to the complete beginner‑friendly gouache course
What You’ll Learn
Gouache Foundations
Learn the essential basics of gouache — how to mix, layer, soften, and rework paint with confidence. You’ll understand how gouache behaves on paper, so you can paint without fear and begin building skills gently, step by step.
Brushstrokes with Soul
Learn tools for organizing ideas, setting goals, and building consistent schedules. From brainstorming to publishing, this course helps turn scattered thoughts into a cohesive plan.
Light & Contrast
Discover how light and shadow guide the viewer’s eye and shape meaning in a painting. You’ll learn to work from strong reference images, simplify values, and use contrast to create depth, focus, and quiet narrative tension.
Story in Paint
Learn how story emerges without needing to “explain” anything. Through colour, symbolic choices, layering, and intentional restraint, you’ll create paintings that hold narrative threads and leave space for the viewer’s imagination.
A Note from Wendy
Wendy Shipman
The MakeHer Studio
I’m Wendy — an artist, writer, and qualified coach, and the founder of The MakeHer Studio. I live on New Zealand’s Kāpiti Coast, where the rhythm of the sea and the changing light often find their way into my work.
Through both my coaching and my art practice, I’ve come to understand creativity as a place of listening — a space where story, memory, faith, and reflection gently meet. Painting has never been about perfection for me, but about presence: learning to slow down and trust what is emerging.
I created Painting Brush Strokes with Soul and Story for those who feel drawn to painting but aren’t sure where to begin, or who are longing for a more thoughtful, supported creative practice. As a coach, I hold space for people to begin gently and without pressure — and this course is an extension of that same care, offered through paint, light, and quiet making.