wagonized — drawings by France Belleville-Van Stone
My courses focus on drawing with a relaxed, pressure-free, and meditative approach — no stressful, monthly challenges. Everything is at your own pace.
Subjects range from portraits of people (faces, hands, eyes, noses, skulls), animals, and cars, to courses designed around specific techniques, or simply showing up at the page and drawing along.
Artist feedback on Wagonized courses
Whether you are an absolute beginner or whether you have already put in miles of lines with your pens and pencils, my courses will guide you in making drawing a habit.
You’ll see every stroke clearly no matter what size screen you have — videos are shot at high resolution and frame-rate (4K, 60 frames/second), putting you right in the studio with me, and they include optional subtitles and searchable transcripts.
The optional, on-screen subtitles are a great way to follow along without needing sound.
No expensive supplies
Simple tools are key. You don’t need costly supplies to make art. Grab a ballpoint pen, a #2 pencil and a piece of paper. There, you have all the tools necessary to make art.
My journey as an artist
I don’t have any formal training in art. I studied English in Strasbourg, France, and moved to the United States on a teaching assistantship at Penn State University. My day job is teaching high school French. Growing up, there were pencils and paper around, my sister and I played with clay, we went to museums, we attended local exhibits, my parents had art books and art was on the walls. Art mattered.
I was fascinated with cars, having grown up next to the Peugeot plant in Sochaux, France — I wanted to draw them, design them, and my favorites of them all were the wagons. Hence wagonized. I have owned several over the years, mostly old Volvos and Volkswagens.
I started my blog in 2006 in an effort to document my daily drawing habit, and in 2008, my drawings were featured in Danny Gregory’s An Illustrated Life.
In 2014, my book Sketch! was published, and I have continued to make time to draw, between teaching and motherhood. I have taught online classes through Sketchbook Skool and Sktchy and have loved connecting with sketchers around the world.