Creative LAB: Classes & Courses from Marta Spendowska
The Wet Way.
Get in. Learn Watercolor. The water's fine.
A course for the never-tried and the already-tried
PS. THIS COURSE DOESN'T TEACH MY BLOOMLANDS MIXED MEDIA TECHNIQUE, BUT PURE WATERCOLOR. SEE CURRICULUM.
Watercolor Course
$285.00
Watercolor Course
$285.00
This course is for you if:
- You've always loved watercolor from a distance and never quite started, and you're tired of waiting for the right moment that isn't coming on its own.
- You've been painting for a while, but it still feels like you're managing the medium rather than working with it. Careful. Controlled. A little stiff. That's not what watercolor is for.
- You're stuck. You know what you want to make, but something between your hand and the paper isn't translating — and no YouTube tutorial has quite cracked it.
- You want to see how someone who has done this for sixteen years professionally actually thinks — not the polished version (although — Polish!), the real one. The decisions, the doubts, the moments where it goes sideways, and what happens next.
Sixteen years. One rutabaga. Over and over. No formulas.
What's waiting for you inside is not a set of rules to memorize. It's a way of seeing the medium, and once you have it, it doesn't leave.
Watercolor is the most honest medium there is.
It moves before you're ready. It bleeds where you didn't ask it to. It dries lighter than you expected and darker than you planned. And then — if you let it — it does something you couldn't have done on purpose, something better than what you had in mind.
That's the whole point.
Enroll in the next 72 hrs and receive free access to my Notion Course / How to Create Art Databases.
Just some of my work
Your Starting Point:
Most people come to watercolor afraid of it.
Afraid of wasting paper, wasting paint, making something ugly, not knowing what they're doing. I understand that fear. I also know it's the one thing standing between you and the medium actually opening up for you.
This course is my attempt to take that fear and put it somewhere else.
What we're not doing here:
We are not chasing perfection. We are not going to produce a flawless painting and pretend that's what watercolor is for. When you watch me paint — and you will watch me paint, in real time, narrating as I go — you will see me struggle. You will see me hit a moment where something goes wrong, where the water spreads too far, or the color muddies, or the shape loses its edge. And you will see how I respond to that with curiosity, with adjustment, with the understanding that the painting is always in conversation, and your job is to keep the conversation going.
What's inside:
The Setup:
MODULE 1: We begin with everything on the table. I show you the paper I use and why it matters, how brushes actually behave, what palettes are for, and the paper you'll be working on. Then I go through my tools — the ones I've collected, loved, and kept reaching for — and we play with them.
It's meant to make you feel like you're in a studio, not a classroom.
The Demonstrations:
MODULE 2: Rutabagas — 6 demos + a demo for a small beet. This is the heart of the course. I paint multiple rutabagas with you in real time, narrating every decision. You see exactly how I use the tools, how I read what the paint is doing, how I handle the moments I didn't plan for — and there are several. You watch me work through them. That's the education. Not the finished painting, but everything that happened on the way there.
Other Goodies :
MODULE 3: Extra tools + a beet demo +
- Fun tools and tricks
- Examples of what you actually need
- Paper types and how they behave
- Brush recommendations
- Palette setup and organization
- Tool roundup for the studio
- Honest demonstrations including mistakes
- What to do when things don't go as planned
- How to recover paintings you don't like
- Why imperfection proves authenticity
Fifteen years of that, distilled into one course.
Watercolor is beautiful because it cannot be fully controlled. Once you stop trying to control it and start learning to work with it — that's when it becomes yours.
Who Is It For:
You want to see how I work. Period.
You've never touched watercolor, and you don't know where to start. You've been circling it — buying the supplies, watching the videos, telling yourself you'll get to it. Start here. This is where you get to it.
You've been painting for a while, but it still feels stiff and managed, like you're fighting the medium instead of working with it. You follow the steps, you do everything right, and somehow the painting still doesn't feel alive. That gap between what you see in your head and what ends up on the paper — that's what this course is about.
You're somewhere in between. You've made things you loved and things you hated, and you're not entirely sure what made the difference. You want to understand the medium well enough that you can trust yourself inside it.
The course is structured — you'll always know where you are — but it doesn't feel like a manual. It feels like someone let you into their studio and said, watch, try, see what happens. Because that's exactly what it is. Spontaneous, direct, honest about the difficulty, and genuinely in love with this medium. You'll watch me make decisions in real time, including the ones that don't work out, and you'll see what I do with them. That's the part no formula can teach you.
Watercolor rewards people who learn to stay with it. This course teaches you how to stay.
Who is it NOT For:
If you're looking for a perfectly produced, step-by-step technical manual where every brushstroke is accounted for and nothing is left to chance — this isn't that. There are plenty of those courses. They will teach you to paint like those courses.
If you need a guarantee that your painting will look exactly like mine at the end — watercolor doesn't work that way, and I won't pretend it does. Your painting will look like yours. That's not a consolation prize. That's the whole point.
If you're not willing to make something imperfect — this course will frustrate you, because imperfection is where all the good stuff lives. Every painter I respect has a pile of paintings they're not proud of. That pile is the education.
If you want someone to hold your hand through every single mark — I'm not that teacher. I'll show you everything I know, but at some point, the brush is in your hand, not mine.
If you're only here to collect courses and never open them — I'd rather you didn't. This one asks something of you. Not much. Just that you show up, get the paper wet, and see what happens.
The Scoop & What's Covered:
What's the Scoop?
This course presents what happens when I'm alone with a paper and a brush and no one watching: the raw, moment-to-moment decisions that happen on a wet surface when there's no time to second-guess yourself. Why am I letting this area run wet? Why am I stopping here, right now, before adding another stroke? How to feel the difference between a painting that's alive and one that's dying under too much attention.
And we're doing all of it with one subject: a rutabaga.
This is a pure watercolor course. No landscapes. No portraits. No florals. Definitely not my Bloomlands series. A single, stubborn, beautiful vegetable — and we paint it over and over across multiple demos. Because when you commit to one subject, something important happens: you stop thinking about what you're painting and start thinking about how watercolor actually works. The subject becomes a lens. The concepts become clear.
The rutabaga is not the point — your understanding of water, pigment, and restraint is the point. The rutabaga just gets you there.
This course changed how I understand my own process just by making it. It will change how you work.
What's Covered:
- Introduction to watercolor — what this medium is, how it behaves, and how to stop being afraid of it
- Paper — types, weights, why your choice matters more than you think
- Brushes — what I use, how different brushes move, and what to actually look for
- Palette setup — how to organize your colors and keep your mixing clean
- Painting surfaces — what you're working on and why it affects everything
- Tools — my full collection, the interesting and the unexpected, with live demonstration of each
- Real-time painting demonstration: Six separated demos of Rutabagas— full narrated walkthrough from blank paper to finished piece.
- How to read what the paint is doing and respond instead of panicking.
- Working through mistakes in real time — you'll see them happen and watch how I handle them
- Additional demonstrations with voiceover; multiple approaches
- How to develop your own instincts with this medium over time.
UPCOMING:
1. Salt and a controversy: April 24th
2. Q & A: May 1st
Come make a mess with me.
A beautiful, deliberate mess.
Fundamentas
Overview of the necessary tools.
Less > More
One rutabaga, painted multiple times.
Perspectives
My honest approach to watercolors.
Hi, Cześć ! I'm Marta.
I'm a Polish-American fine artist and illustrator based on the NH Seacoast, and I've been working professionally in the art world for over sixteen years.
Since 2007, I've collaborated with collectors, consultants, and brands like Lancôme, Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, Kotex, and Better Homes & Gardens. My work lives in hotels, residencies, and private collections around the world. I've built a career on my own terms, in my own style, without compromising what makes my work mine.
For a decade, people asked me to teach. Students, followers, other artists — and yes, course platforms with their systems and their funnels and their guarantees. I turned all of them down. Not out of stubbornness, though I am Polish, so a little out of stubbornness. Mostly because they all wanted the same thing: a formula. A reliable, repeatable, anyone-can-do-it formula. And I kept thinking — that's not watercolor. That's not what I do. That's not what I'd want to learn.
Sixteen years of painting. Fine art and illustration, as I am represented worldwide by an agency. Thousands of hours of watercolor on paper, on boards, on weird substrates, some that worked and some that didn't. Commissions, collections, experiments, failures, and a few paintings that still surprise me when I look at them.
I wanted to do it my way.
The Wet Way is that. It's not a system, nor is it a guarantee. It's an honest look at how I actually work — the decisions I make, the instincts I've built, and the moments where something goes sideways, and I stay with it anyway. Because staying with it is the skill. Everything else follows from there.
I'm glad you're here. Let's paint.
FAQ:
Do I need any experience?
None. The course starts from zero. If you've never held a watercolor brush, you're exactly who this is for.
I've painted before but feel stuck. Will this help?
I believe—yes. This isn't a beginner formula course — it's how I actually work. If you've been painting by rules and it feels mechanical, watching someone work intuitively tends to break that open.
What supplies do I need before I start?
We cover everything in the course. I show you exactly what I use and why. You don't need to buy anything before you watch the first section.
Do I need expensive supplies?
No. But paper matters more than most people think, and I'll tell you exactly what to get and what to skip. My favorite brushes are below $15. For a palette, you can use a white trash can lid. I'm serious!
What if I make a mess?
Good. That's the medium working. The course shows you how to respond to what the paint does — including the moments that don't go as planned. You'll watch me navigate those in real time.
Will my painting look like yours at the end?
It will look like yours. That's the point. Nobody needs copycats.
How is this different from other watercolor courses?
I teach it, so it's my way. I turned down course platforms for a decade because they wanted formulas. This isn't that. It's structured enough to follow, loose enough actually to teach you something.
Is this course only about painting a rutabaga?
This is a pure watercolor course. No landscapes. No portraits. No florals. Definitely not my Bloomlands series. A single, stubborn, beautiful vegetable — and we paint it over and over across multiple demos. Because when you commit to one subject, something important happens: you stop thinking about what you're painting and start thinking about how watercolor actually works. The subject becomes a lens. The concepts become clear.
What format is the course in?
Video, with full narration throughout the main demonstration and voiceover on the additional paintings. Some text and I'm foreseeing expanding via short podcast recordings.
Can I access the course material after I finish?
Yes! Once you enroll, you’ll have lifetime (meaning, until the course or/and I are alive...) access to the course materials. This means you can revisit any module whenever you need a refresher or want to make updates to your art management system.
If there are updates to the course (I am sure there will be), you'll have access to those as well.
What kind of support can I expect during the course?
This is a self-paced course — watch it on your schedule, pause, rewatch, come back to it.
I don't offer ongoing coaching or critique as part of this course, unless something changes. If something comes up and you email me, I'll do my best to respond, but I want to be upfront: I'm a working artist, not a help desk. What's here in the course is thorough enough to stand on its own.
How long does the course take to complete?
If you watch at 1 x speed, read through, and listen, about a day's worth, with breaks for eating:)
Do you really speak English..?
Absolutely, I really do speak English! In fact, I’m fluent in it—like a duck in water.
I’m Polish-English, so you might say I have a bit of a ‘bilingual flair’—think of it as a delightful cocktail of cultures. And don’t worry, to make things even easier, the course comes with transcripts and captions. So, if my charming accent throws you off, you can still follow along and catch all the good stuff.
What about refunds?
Due to the digital nature of this course, there are no refunds.
Yes, some instructors offer them. I'm not like other people. Doing things my way is also why my watercolors look the way they do — so you already knew this about me.
If you hate it, I understand. You probably won't buy from me again, and I'll have to live with that. But I don't think you'll hate it 😃