Take the mystery out of creating meaningful art. Stop wasting time in the studio. Build a dynamic portfolio. Make art that matters!
Class Collection
🌱 Starter - beginner or refresher
🔹 Build - growing skills, exploration
🎨 All Levels - beginner friendly, advancing fast
💥 Intensive - full immersion, mastery
Challenge your control of color by painting the entire spectrum on a single canvas. Push past old habits of realism, blending, and tight brushwork while painting a 3/4 view face in this Rainbow Portrait class.
💥 Intensive
Rainbow Portrait
Paint With Every Color of the Rainbow
💥 Intensive
Break every old habit of matching color. Bold color is all about the rainbow so why not paint the entire color spectrum on a face? This class will challenge your ability to control color and help you break the old habits of realism, blending and tight brushwork.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✔️ Color Mixing Strategy
✔️ Control your Color Palette
✔️ Loosen up your brush strokes
✔️ Paint entire portrait in real-time
✔️ Troubleshooting and Analyzing your process
✔️ Plus much more!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Binge watched, of course! I was fascinated by your description of how you hold your brushes and which angle you use for each stroke by seeing the shapes on the reference picture before making a mark on the canvas."
- Mary-Ellen Lee
Rainbow Portrait
Paint With Every Color of the Rainbow
💥 Intensive
Break every old habit of matching color. Bold color is all about the rainbow so why not paint the entire color spectrum on a face? This class will challenge your ability to control color and help you break the old habits of realism, blending and tight brushwork.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✔️ Color Mixing Strategy
✔️ Control your Color Palette
✔️ Loosen up your brush strokes
✔️ Paint entire portrait in real-time
✔️ Troubleshooting and Analyzing your process
✔️ Plus much more!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Binge watched, of course! I was fascinated by your description of how you hold your brushes and which angle you use for each stroke by seeing the shapes on the reference picture before making a mark on the canvas."
- Mary-Ellen Lee
What if every wrinkle told a story—and you got to paint it your way? This class moves beyond the reference photo, teaching you to capture the depth and emotion of older faces with structure, intuition, and bold expression.
🔹 Build
TELL A STORY WITH WRINKLES
Stop painting a face. Start telling a story.
Use color and brushwork to create art that truly impacts viewers. It’s time to go beyond just copying a reference—use structure, skill, and personal expression to bring a story to life on your canvas. Sometimes the story is clear before you start, and sometimes the painting reveals it as you go. Learn to control color and marks, while also making space for your piece to evolve naturally.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✔️ Painting wrinkles with depth
✔️ Tell a story with color
✔️ Details without Realism
✔️ Evaluating your work
✔️ Narrow your focus
✔️ Plus so much more!
Make art that impacts those who see it.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"I did binge watch. How could I not? I had to see what you were going to do with the area bugging you. You successfully demonstrated 'to not give up' and to make, what might seem like radical change,s to areas that aren't working quite right. That really sunk in and has helped me already.
Great class!
Thank you Charla."
- Mari Van Dyke
TELL A STORY WITH WRINKLES
Stop painting a face. Start telling a story.
Use color and brushwork to create art that truly impacts viewers. It’s time to go beyond just copying a reference—use structure, skill, and personal expression to bring a story to life on your canvas. Sometimes the story is clear before you start, and sometimes the painting reveals it as you go. Learn to control color and marks, while also making space for your piece to evolve naturally.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✔️ Painting wrinkles with depth
✔️ Tell a story with color
✔️ Details without Realism
✔️ Evaluating your work
✔️ Narrow your focus
✔️ Plus so much more!
Make art that impacts those who see it.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"I did binge watch. How could I not? I had to see what you were going to do with the area bugging you. You successfully demonstrated 'to not give up' and to make, what might seem like radical change,s to areas that aren't working quite right. That really sunk in and has helped me already.
Great class!
Thank you Charla."
- Mari Van Dyke
Painting is storytelling. Every stroke is a word, every mark a sentence.
This class gives you a whole new vocabulary of marks—texture, new tools, and fresh ways to explore color—to speak through your art.
🌱 Starter
Making Bold Marks
Learn how to use negative space, value, and mark-making to create more dynamic, expressive portraits.
You will cover:
→ Introducing Negative Space: Learn to see and shape the areas you leave blank, controlling composition, contrast, and focus to make every part of your painting stronger.
→ Complete the Palette: Pre-mix and document your colors so you can make consistent, vibrant choices every time.
→ Shifting Perspective: Move beyond rigid lines and edges, using temperature and subtle compositional shifts to make your work more compelling.
→ Starting the Face: Establish large value shapes to get the form right from the start.
→ Atmospheric Perspective: Use relationships and subtle perspective shifts to create depth and realism while maintaining expression.
→ Ink Sticks: Add texture, variation, and unique effects with new tools.
→ Solid Markers: Use bold strokes and palette knife marks to direct focus and strengthen storytelling.
→ Turn on the Lights: Introduce metallics and highlights strategically to emphasize key areas without overworking the painting.
Through step-by-step demonstrations of entire portraits, you’ll learn practical techniques you can apply immediately—control value, composition, and marks to make your paintings more expressive, balanced, and visually engaging.
Making Bold Marks
Learn how to use negative space, value, and mark-making to create more dynamic, expressive portraits.
You will cover:
→ Introducing Negative Space: Learn to see and shape the areas you leave blank, controlling composition, contrast, and focus to make every part of your painting stronger.
→ Complete the Palette: Pre-mix and document your colors so you can make consistent, vibrant choices every time.
→ Shifting Perspective: Move beyond rigid lines and edges, using temperature and subtle compositional shifts to make your work more compelling.
→ Starting the Face: Establish large value shapes to get the form right from the start.
→ Atmospheric Perspective: Use relationships and subtle perspective shifts to create depth and realism while maintaining expression.
→ Ink Sticks: Add texture, variation, and unique effects with new tools.
→ Solid Markers: Use bold strokes and palette knife marks to direct focus and strengthen storytelling.
→ Turn on the Lights: Introduce metallics and highlights strategically to emphasize key areas without overworking the painting.
Through step-by-step demonstrations of entire portraits, you’ll learn practical techniques you can apply immediately—control value, composition, and marks to make your paintings more expressive, balanced, and visually engaging.
Five immersive classes exploring bold and subtle color, thick and delicate textures, and expressive wildlife painting. Learn planning, mark-making, abstraction, and how to bring depth to every stroke.
💥 Intensive
This beginner class covers the essentials of acrylic painting, focusing on the tools and understanding color in a practical way. Use color to create bold, abstract portraits, with step-by-step guidance to help you get started and build confidence in your art.
🌱 Starter
Remove the barriers between you, the art you love to make, and the people your art is meant to impact. This signature class alone will teach you everything you need to know to paint your first bold color portrait with anything but skin tones.
🎨 All Levels
Create art where colors just work together. This series breaks it down in a simple, 5-step way, showing you how colors “get along” and make your paintings feel alive. It's not complicated—just learn how to make your colors sing.
🔹 Build
Understand the pigments you already own so every mix is a choice, not a mistake. No more muddy results. Create your own color profiles and learn how to apply them to your work. It’s not just about theory—it’s about practical, hands-on color control.
🎨 All Levels
Paint With Every Color of the Rainbow
Break every old habit of matching color.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Binge watched, of course! I was fascinated by your description of how you hold your brushes and which angle you use for each stroke by seeing the shapes on the reference picture before making a mark on the canvas."
- Mary-Ellen Lee
MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR
CHARLA MAARSCHALK
Charla Maarschalk is a Canadian painter who specializes in painting large, bold color, gestural faces. She has been a creative all her life working in the graphic arts as well as photography.
Charla has taught art almost as long as she has practiced it and has aquired a large online following. You can see some of her work below. Check out her online portfolio at www.charla.ca and follow her on social media.
Want access to all classes?
Join Bold School+ Memebership.
Choose the Plan That's Right for You
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Another great class! I love being able to see the painting, the palette and the reference photo all at the same time especially since there were so many colors. I have been challenged, in a good way, and encouraged by both the classes and the community."
- Sienna
Student Gallery
Your Learning, Your Way
You’ve got two ways to dive in:
🎨 Standalone Class
Get instant access to a full pre-recorded painting series. Watch step-by-step, real-time lessons with Charla Maarschalk and follow along at your own pace. Includes discussion boards under each lesson so you can ask questions and get guidance right when you need it.
🌿 Membership
Go all in and unlock our full library of 40+ classes. Enjoy community access, peer mentoring, guidance from Bold School mentors, downloadable workbooks, live events, and all the videos you want—plus ongoing support as you grow your skills.
New to Painting? Start with Bold Color Primer or Bold Color Bootcamp—both included in the Bold Color Bundle.
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