cathy nichols

I am so grateful to have found Cathy on my art and healing journey, and I hope you join in too. You will be so glad you did!

I am one of those people who has always felt creative but never made the time to pursue it or give it the space it needed to grow. 2 years ago I had to leave work due to health reasons, and the recovery has been slow, long, and full of space for me to let my creative juices finally flow. Its funny how life gives us these “gifts”!. I found Cathy Nichols through a recommendation from a friend, and I was just in time to join the Joy of Painting, another gift from life! Through the last year of following Cathy, and also joining her in person for a 10 day retreat in France, I have grown significantly in my art journey. Cathy is the “real thing”, in that she gives generously in her teaching and she genuinely cares about her students. She is so talented, and has such a warm, humble and personable approach to her teaching. She also has a great sense of humor! Through her membership I have finally gained confidence in my ability to mix color (this has alluded me until now, even after taking a few on line courses). Cathy’s teachings simplified color mixing and empowered me to create nuanced color palettes, create shadow and highlights, and bravely add pops of accent color that brought my art to life. I feel like I have a more solid foundation in collage, color theory, painting florals, and creating compositions that work. I also feel free to add whimsical creative touches that don’t have to be perfect. This membership has been so worthwhile, and I have found a community of fellow artists that I did not have before.

I’ve gained confidence in my painting and I have learned to let go and have fun! The first of each month is like a mini Christmas gift when I open my new class from Cathy! If you’re thinking about joining, just do it!

I’ve been a Joy of painting member with Cathy Nichols for almost 2 years now! After a 25 year break from art, while raising my family, I decided to do something fun for myself! These last couple of years have been wonderful! Cathy’s kind heart and cheerful style give me so much joy. Each month the episodes are prerecorded so you can work at your own pace, and the content is above and beyond the other classes I’ve taken online. She has taught me color theory, composition, mixed media collaging, and so much more!

Excited to go into the studio again!

I had never done collages before working with Cathy. She broke my perception that creating collages was just tearing up magazine pages and reassembling them. I never imagined that I would learn to draw, paint and create my own papers. But Cathy teaches all of that in Joy of Painting. Using Cathy’s technique has ‘jump started’ my normal painting process. I’ve started experimenting and subsequently developing my work in new directions! If it weren’t for Cathy, I probably would not be as excited every day to go into my art studio!

I'm learning to master the subtlety of colors with Cathy all the way from Germany!

When it comes to color, I'm a colorful bird. I love strong, clear colors - ALWAYS. That's why I love Cathy's pictures so much. They are so wonderfully colorful and despite having many different elements, they never seem overloaded or chaotic. Through Cathy I learned how to use color so that the strong colors I love would not compete but, instead, have greater impact. Cathy has also shown me how to use reference paintings from the masters as springboards for my own ideas.