Coffee Break Cats

A RELAXED coloured pencil course for beginners

From doodles on your coffee break to a portrait you’d hang on your wall. On your timescale.

Have you ever looked at a drawing of a cat and thought: I wish I could do that.

The light catching the eyes makes it feel so real. But crikey! All that fur.

You've thought about picking up coloured pencils for a while now. Maybe there's a set somewhere in a drawer. Maybe you were gifted a set last Christmas. You used to draw as a child, or you've watched someone create something beautiful and quietly wondered whether you could ever do that too.

But getting from where you are to a finished cat portrait? That feels impossible. You wouldn't know where to start. You'd need expensive materials. You'd need to have a natural talent.

Coffee Break Cats is a different way in.

This course starts with three pencils and a sketchbook. It builds feature by feature — nose, eye, ear, fur, whiskers — in short sessions designed to fit into real life. Think ten to 45 mins with a cuppa. Something you can pick up and put down, with a clear sequence to follow (and a hub that remembers for you where you were!). Every key feature is taught twice: a short demo to learn the basics and, when you feel ready, a full-colour version to apply what you've practised. By the end, you'll have drawn a full cat portrait.

You won't just have drawn one cat. You'll have learned the foundations of working with coloured pencils: how to move your pencil, how to lay colours on top of each other to create new ones, how to use light and shadow to make a drawing feel real. Skills that apply to any cat (or anything else you want to draw).

Get Early Access

Early Access Pricing

I'm building this course over the coming weeks. Rather than wait until everything's polished and finished, I'm opening early access now — for anyone who'd rather come along while I'm recording it than wait until it's done.

£20 until 30 June 2026.
I’ll then close to new subscribers and reopen at a substantially higher price.

My promise to you: Early-access buyers keep their access to all future updates and refinements as the course develops.

The first sessions are available now. New content arrives as I record it — usually within a week or two of each release. I can't promise exact dates for everything, but I'll keep you updated as the course builds out.

Get Early Access

What You’ll Experience:

1. Sequenced Tutorials

Most beginner content teaches fragments. An eye here. A specific fur pattern there. A different paper every time. The pieces never quite combine.
Coffee Break Cats will be over 10 hours of short sessions, structured so each one builds on the last — until the techniques connect into a complete working approach you can take to any cat.
2. Expert Guidance

I'm an award-winning coloured pencil artist and a trained educator — but I came to coloured pencils as an adult, and I remember exactly which bits felt unclear or simply impossible.
That memory shapes how I teach.
Minimal jargon. No assumed experience. I'll show you the same idea in multiple ways until it clicks because we all learn differently.
3. Course Hub

Your central space for all course materials. Access reference photos, a materials guide, and videos. Track your progress, revisit techniques, and work at your own pace.
Everything you need, organised and ready when you are.
The hub remains available indefinitely, so you can revisit materials anytime.

tell me more

My Approach to Teaching Art

Hello! I’m Amii. A busy mum and coloured pencil artist.

I started drawing in a sketchpad on my lap, then graduated to the kitchen table. I’m still there - working on a cheap collapsible easel that gets tucked away for family mealtimes. One day I'll have a studio. For now, I'm happy being in the thick of it - grabbing time for me when I can.

The cats you'll meet in this course I know personally, including my own: Monty (you'll meet him properly in the final project) and Indigo.

I built this course because of how I learnt to draw. I'd get up at 4am to fit it in around work and family - that was the only way I could make space for it. I don't want that for anyone starting out. Coffee Break Cats works around the time you actually have, with room to practise and watch yourself improve at your own pace.

Full disclosure: my favourite way to teach is hands-on, with feedback, in proper relationship with a small group of artists. That's what my live workshops are for.

Coffee Break Cats is the first step into my world - the foundations you need before that kind of work makes sense. If you complete it and want more, you'll know where to find me.

Reserve my place

Yes. The course is designed for absolute beginners. We start with three pencils and a sketchbook, and the first sessions introduce techniques slowly and clearly. In bite-sized chunks. If you've never picked up a coloured pencil, this is the right place to start.
To begin, you'll need three pencils and a sketchbook. That's enough for the short feature studies in the foundation phase, where we focus on key techniques: how to move your pencil, how to build value with light and shadow, how to follow the form of what you're drawing. I'll send you the exact starter list when you sign up.
To work alongside me on the full-colour versions of each feature — and on the final portrait of Monty — you'll want the full kit. This is around 25 pencils across four brands, plus pro paper. Mostly Faber-Castell Polychromos, which give you excellent quality at a more accessible price, with selected pencils from Caran d'Ache Luminance, Caran d'Ache Pablo, and Derwent Lightfast where the colour intensity, hue, or layering quality genuinely earns its place.
If you bought everything new, you'd be looking at £60-£120 depending on which suppliers you use. Most students don't buy everything at once — you build the collection over time, starting with the basics and adding as you need them. I've made sure that every pencil I recommend is one I use regularly and trust.
You can still get a great deal from the course with only the trio kit — you'll learn the foundations and watch the full-colour demos. But to draw alongside me in colour, the full kit is what gets you there.
Coffee Break Cats is fully self-paced, designed to fit into busy lives. You watch the videos when it suits you, pick the course up and put it down as life allows, and never miss out because something arrived on a day you couldn't make.
If you have questions as you work through, you're welcome to email me - I can't promise instant replies, but I read everything and respond when I can. I'd especially love to see your finished drawings when you get there.
My live workshops run a few times a year if you'd like hands-on teaching in a small group further down the line.
Foundation demos are around 10-15 minutes each (but you should allow some time to practise). The full-colour demos are 30-45 minutes. The final project is split into multiple sessions all under 45 minutes - designed to fit into real life rather than demand long stretches of uninterrupted time. If you do find yourself with an afternoon to spare, you can watch them back-to-back.
The course has three parts.
The Getting Started section has three short videos plus a materials guide.
Then, the feature studies work through six features — nose, eye, ear, muzzle, fur, and feature relationships — most as a pair of recordings: a short three-pencil foundation study, then a full-colour version.
The final part is the full portrait of Monty, broken into several sessions under 45 minutes each.
Six features, most drawn twice, plus Monty.
Somewhere upwards of twelve guided drawings in total, possibly more. Not all will be full cats — most are bits of cats :)
Yes. The reference photos are of my own cats, and you're welcome to share your finished drawings on social media, give them as gifts, or sell original drawings you've made from them. I just ask that you credit me and the course when sharing online.