I feel that during lockdown you can be as busy or as idle as you wish, but if you or your kids are keen to learn some art online – and for free – there are some lovely resources. While these classes are aimed at kids, there’s obviously no reason why you can’t get onboard too.

Here are some lessons I’ve come across:

Artist Mo Willems, an illustrator of Knuffle Bunny and the television series Sheep in the Big City for Cartoon Network, has a live class in which he creates a new doodle. Don’t worry if you miss the live class – all the videos are on his YouTube channel.

Skillshare has 13, free online art classes for kids, using different mediums. My favourite is how to draw a unicorn!

Jerry’s Artarama has a huge range of classes that include drawing, painting and art projects. There are more than 4000 lessons for all levels.

The Kitchen Table Classroom is a one-stop resource for painting and drawing classes, crafts and printables. There’s a huge amount of great content, so if there’s one site that you need, this is it.

Artist Carla Sonheim has a series of art classes on her site run by her and other artist teachers. On her site you’ll find lots of paid-for classes, but they’re quite pricey for us South Africans.

Kids only need basic art materials and can learn how to pain things like Picasso Dogs and imaginary flowers.

Thrive Art School is an art school in the US, and they’ve published some art videos for beginner and intermediate artists. Kids will learn everything from puppies and creative boats to water lilies and turtle textures.

Kids can learn cartoon-type drawings with author/illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka, author of Punk Farm, Lunch Lady, Jedi Academy and Hey, Kiddo. This is great for adults too.

Sparketh has more than 1000 quick art videos for kids six and older. The lessons are free for 30 days, and then it’s $25 a month.