The Color Cure is coming to you - online!
You asked… and it’s happening!
All the content from our 2025 destination retreats is available in The Color Cure four week online course.
Why Color ?
Over the years, we’ve heard countless artists say, “I struggle with color.”
We understand why. Color isn’t just another element of art—it’s one of the most transformative. While value is essential, it’s not the whole story. All the color components and the principles that shape them have the power to bring clarity, emotion, harmony, and depth to your work.
The truth is: a color is never “right” on its own—it’s only right in context.
Learning to see and use color in relationship is what allows paintings to feel vibrant, intentional, and complete.
If you’ve ever wished you could…
Start a painting with more confidence
Make stronger choices during the muddled middle
Or push through those moments when you feel stuck
…then it’s time to take a deeper dive into the element of color.
Color offers so many forms of contrast: hue, value, saturation, complementary, opacity, and temperature contrasts. That’s a lot to unpack! Yes, some paintings come together through pure play—but when they don’t, frustration sets in quickly. That’s when having a clear system, reliable tools, and real color knowledge changes everything.
The Color Cure was created to give you exactly that:
a practical, accessible way to understand color so you can move through your painting process with clarity, ease, and confidence—from beginning to end.
Here’s what you’ll learn…
Composing with color
Mixing any color you want
Limiting your palette for greater emotional impact
Finding new palettes for expression
Understanding how the principles of art apply to color
Mastering color contrasts
Recognizing the limits of the color wheel
Applying the learning to your personal work
Remember…intuition is rooted in knowledge.
Your Instructors
Mastering a skill isn’t about memorizing facts or learning formulas. It's about understanding why things work and then applying them. During our week together we’ll be your guides providing presentations, exercises, painting prompts, demos and live calls. Our exercises are guaranteed to strengthen your mastery of color contrasts, allowing you to have total control of your composition. Our painting prompts will provide the experiential learning that sticks and applies to YOUR art.
Susan Melrath
Susan has been a painter for her entire adult life - working as a published illustrator for many years, and a studio artist for the last twenty. She discovered her love of teaching through coaching in the Art2Life Creative Visionary Program. As head coach, she helped thousands of artists find their way to making strong, authentic work. Her greatest love is helping painters understand how to organize the elements in their paintings to make them as strong and compelling as can be. Susan’s work can be seen at Art & Light Gallery in Greenville, SC and Museo Gallery in Langley, WA.
Terri Froelich
Terri Froelich is an abstract painter and photographer in Sausalito, California. Terri worked as a commercial photographer for many years before switching her focus to painting in 2002. She is represented by Julie Nester Gallery (Park City, UT) and Kennedy Contemporary (Newport Beach, CA). Her passion for teaching has helped many artists find solutions in their process and strengthen their work.
Terri and Susan launched ARTfuel in 2023 to help artists utilize the principles and elements of art in their work, offer new perspectives and assist them with their artistic journey through online courses and in-person retreats around the world.
“The teaching standard: absolutely excellent. I appreciated that the course itself was focused – on purely practical aspects of art making and leaving out other subjects like artist mindset (“Soul”), business-related matters, etc. I loved the clear structure of it. I thought the exercises were highly effective at getting me to think in new unfamiliar ways. All the artwork examples in the presentations were very helpful.”
~ Rob Smales, Online Filter & Focus
When & Where?
We’ll start on January 23rd and wrap it up on February 20th, 2026 - online, in the comfort of your own home!
What will I need?
We’ll work on sturdy paper with acrylic paint.
Once you register, you will be sent a complete supply list.
Click the button below to join us!
I’m in! What now?
Hear from people who have taken The Color Cure or an online program.
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“I really enjoyed this workshop. We got into depth on how color works and how color relates to each other. These are things I’ve heard before, but really didn’t understand how to apply them by providing examples and exercises. I was able to really grasp how to do a better job using color in my paintings. The teachers were very accessible and helpful when we had problems or didn’t understand.”
~ Sandra Campeau, Scotland 2025
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(The course had) “a focus on the basics, with a different twist, a new way of approaching composition, permission to experiment and push ourselves. I liked the blend of rigor and freedom. The assignments were excellent. The demonstrations were fabulous, with Susan's being more representational and Terri's being totally abstract. And, as always, Susan's re-working of pieces - improving compositions in subtle ways- was one of my favorite parts; I could watch those all day! Plus, stay up late at night with Terri as she works on her multiples!
~ Rena Diana, Filter & Focus Online 2025
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“Susan Melrath and Terri Froelich’s deep dive into color was fantastic. I gained a far greater understanding of how color works. The endless options available to me by understanding the nuances of color offers me many more tools to increase the impact of my work. Their presentations were excellent in explaining. the technical aspects of color as well as providing dozens and dozens of real life examples to support the principles. In addition the patience and passion that they provided every student in one on one conversations made all the difference. It was a very fun week with a fun group of like-minded artists”
~ Lori Rhodes - Italy 2025 -
“I hesitated to register for filter and focus having felt that previous online workshops didn’t meet my expectation or the hype! I am so glad I changed my mind! Terri and Susan are amazing teachers and this course has strengthened my art. With all the learning in just four weeks, I feel my art is stronger will only get better. The lessons were organized and structured for any level of artist. Everyone benefited! You could see the lightbulb moments when fellow students applied what they had learned in their own work. The biggest take away, “stay the path”, “follow a line of inquiry”, “stay in your lane – focus on you and your art”. I have developed a process with my painted collage and I hope very much to continue and refine this by using all I have learned from Terri and Susan and their amazing lessons.”
~ Nancy Melbourn, Filter & Focus Online 2025
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“This retreat was exactly what my art practice needed: fresh ideas, instant feedback from many sources, and inspiration from other artists, including Susan and Terri. When I studied color theory in college, it was because it was required. Decades later, I realize that I had gaps in my understanding of how to make color work for my compositions. Saturation, desaturation and using subtle temperature contrasts can bring an emotional element that I think my work has been missing.”
~ Carolyn Prince, Italy 2025
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“I would definitely recommend this course! The combination of clear explanations, exercises, examples and painting demos provides understandable guidance through the elements and principles of painting. The website was beautifully organized and easy to navigate and materials such as videos and PDFs for each lesson were easy to access. And, of course, Susan and Terri are super talented, knowledgeable, generous and fun!
~ Sue Rose, Filter & Focus Online 2025, The Color Cure Scotland 2025
Here’s what’s included:
4 weeks of video presentations and demos
2 live calls weekly that includes a Q+A and feedback from Terri and Susan on artwork being created during the course
An online community of like-minded artists
Hands-on exercises and prompts to help you compose with color, master color contrasts, understand how the principles of art apply to color, mix any color you want and more.
Access to the website and content for one year
Are you ready?
ARTfuel’s four week The Color Cure Online is
$950
Click below to sign up or for payment in full or a payment plan information through Klarna and Afterpay.
Enrollment offer closes on Monday, January 12th at 9pm (PST)!
If you decide this course is not for you, we offer a full refund if you notify us within five days of the start of the program (by January 27th).
Your Work, Your Voice, Amplified
Student work and exercise examples:
Q + A
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The dates of the Color Cure online are January 23 - February 20, 2026.
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The Color Cure Online course is 4 weeks with new content and two live calls each week. However, you do have access to all of the content for a full year.
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Here’s what’s included:
4 weeks of video presentations and demos
2 live calls weekly that include feedback from Terri and Susan on artwork being created during the course
An online community of like-minded artists
Hands-on exercises and prompts to help you compose with color, master color contrasts, understand how the principles of art apply to color, mix any color you want and more.
Access to the website and content for one year
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The cost for the Color Cure four-week online course is $950(USD).
Payment plan options are available at checkout through Klarna or Afterpay. -
Color Cure is taught using acrylic paint. The concepts we are teaching apply to other mediums, however we will only use acrylics during the course.
You may use another medium if you feel proficient in mixing color and value and achieving opacity and transparency. -
The only way to answer this is to say that we consider a beginner someone who has never, ever picked up a paintbrush. If this is you, this course is possibly too advanced. However, If you have used a brush and paint, or taken a workshop/online class and have the desire to dive deeper into the principles and elements of color, then this is for you! We strongly feel that continued learning is part of the growth of an artist and their practice.
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We will look at work produced in the course each week. We can’t promise that everyone will have their work discussed, but the feedback will be pertinent because everyone will be doing the same exercises. It’s incredible how much you can learn by seeing critiques of your colleague’s work!
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The content and the two live calls each week will be approximately 3-4 hours. There will be exercises and painting prompts and the time each person will spend on this will be a personal decision.
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Yes, if you decide this program is not for you, we offer a full refund if you notify us within five days of the start of the course (by January 27th).
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A full supply list will be available once you register for the course. Below is a short list of supplies needed:
-Acrylic Paint (this course is taught in acrylics only)
-Arches paper pad
-Nylon brushes assorted sizes of flats and rounds
-Cafeteria trays
-Tracing Paper
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Color Cure Online will be accessible for one year from the start date of the course.
I would definitely recommend it. Best workshop I've taken - loved the excellent well-organized content, demos, assigned exercises and the way you (Susan and Terri) interacted with each other and people taking the course. Also for an online workshop, the time commitment required and the way you managed and kept to the allotted times were excellent - enough to actually digest what was being taught without being overwhelmed or having to make very lengthy time commitment.
Jane Aubin, Filter & Focus Online 2025
