Learn to paint and draw with our online resources

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13th September 2021

Whether you’re an absolute beginner or already confident in your artistic skills, we have something here for you. Our amazing array of digital resources includes a wide selection of free courses, a comprehensive choice of magazines and books and, for the student of art and art history, an in-depth and authoritative range of reference resources.

art courses

Courses

The Great Courses offers a series of video classes (each approximately half an hour long) with some great advice for artists, such as:

  • How to Paint:
    • 24 lectures including: Painting People; Painting Water and Clouds; Working with Oils; Working with Acrylics; etc.
  • How to Draw:
    • 36 lectures featuring lessons such as: An Introduction to Drawing; Drawing Fundamentals and First Exercises; Texture: How Artists use Texture; The Figure: Artistic Anatomy; etc.

Each course is taught by experts in their field, and includes a supplementary guide book. You can play, pause, and review information as often as you like. You can access as many courses as you want to for 7 days. After 7 days, simply log in again and get another 7 day’s access.

Universal Class  provides access to 500+ online courses including classes on developing artistic methods and techniques, such as:

  • How to Draw 101
  • Acrylic Painting 101
  • Watercolor Painting 101
  • Mixed Media Art
  • Face Painting 101

Let’s take a closer look at Watercolour Painting 101. Over a series of 11 lessons, you’ll learn about:

  • Working with Color, 
  • Watercolor Techniques, 
  • Composition, 
  • Five Quick Ways to Improve your Art, 
  • and much more.

Universal Class courses include tutorials, lessons, assignments, discussion boards, and feedback on work you’ve submitted. All the courses are completely online, self-paced, available 24/7, and you have 6 months to complete each one. You’ll be awarded a certificate at the end that you can print off and keep.

If you prefer not to do any assignments, a lot of Universal Class courses give you an option to just watch the video tutorials. Just to note, you won’t get a certificate at the end if you choose this option.

Register for Universal Class

Art magazines

BorrowBox has a small selection of books to help you develop your artistic skills and techniques. Here are some of the titles on offer – just remember you need to login first with you library card:

And for the kids:

Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN. Members of other library authorities will need to log in using a different link.

Art reference resources

If you want to learn more about art and art history, Oxford Art Online gives you access to a number of acclaimed art reference works including The Grove Dictionary of Art, The Benezit Dictionary of Artists, The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.

To find out more about the great resources, check out our Oxford Art Online blog post.

To access Oxford Art Online, enter your Dublin City library card number where indicated (usually to the left of the screen), and select Dublin City Libraries from the options given.

Have a look on our website for a full list of our online resources. Or check out our blogs more information on a wide range of reference and research tools: these include music and language learning; dictionaries of English, Reference; and encyclopaedias such as Britannica and World Book.

If you don’t have a library card, contact your local library and they will help you to join. More information on library membership.

If you have any queries or if you registered online and can’t access any of these resources, you can also contact us at [email protected].

Submitted by Reader/Bibliographic Services

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