Watercolor Academy Sales and Service Policy
Watercolor Academy ("we", "us", or "our") is an online educational resource that provides to fine artists and art enthusiasts alike educational materials and information on "how to paint in watercolor" topics through our website (https:// WatercolorAcademy.com) as well as personal support and tutoring to our registered members ("you", "student", or "member").
Please read this Sales and Service Policy ("Policy") carefully. It contains the legal terms and conditions that govern sales, refunds, and use of purchased products and services.
What We Offer
Watercolor Academy offers the following educational art courses:
- Watercolor Academy Online Course
- Watercolor Academy Correspondence Course
These art courses are provided in form of the Watercolor Academy membership ("Product").
Watercolor Academy Online Course is a self-study course that consists of:
- 80 Video lessons on topics of how to paint in watercolor
- Personal Support from the Academy tutors
- Place in our online Students Gallery
- Members-only newsletter
- Watercolor Academy Diploma of Excellence
Personal Support includes:
- Critique of students' artworks
- Answers to their art-related questions
- and advice on how to improve their drawing skills
Watercolor Academy Correspondence Course is a one-to-one personal tutoring course that consists of:
- Everything that is provided in the Watercolor Academy Online Course
- Personal Tutoring by the Academy tutors
Personal Tutoring consists of:
- Assessment of member's level of art skills upon enrollment
- Creation of an individual curriculum of up to 100 watercolor painting tasks, which is tailored to member's level of skills and needs
- Detailed instructions for every task
- Assessment of every task report, critique of student's artworks and suggestions for improvement per task
- Assessment of student's progress on ongoing basis and curriculum adjustment if necessary
Delivery of these products and services is described in the Watercolor Academy Terms of Service.
Watercolor Academy Sales and Refund Policy
By purchasing Watercolor Academy products and services, you confirm that you have read and agreed to this Sales and Refund Policy.
Product Sales
The chosen art course can be purchased for a one-time payment. There are no payment plans or installments.
The price of the course includes the complete package of products and services as described in the "What We Offer" section.
The course, and therefore the price, is not divisible into smaller units of separate lessons, or sessions of support or tutoring.
Refunds
The course consists of intangible products and services that cannot be returned by a student. That is why we cannot provide any refunds once you have received access to the Watercolor Academy membership area.
Should you make a duplicate purchase by mistake, (i.e. purchasing two or more memberships instead of one) your overpayment will be refunded.
Upgrades and Downgrades
Watercolor Academy Online Course students can upgrade to the Correspondence Course at any time for a one-time payment.
Watercolor Academy Correspondence Course students can downgrade to the Online Course at any time. However, because personal support is an intangible product and as such cannot be returned by a student, we cannot provide any refunds to downgrading members.
Product Purchases from the Watercolor Academy
From time to time, Watercolor Academy may make certain products available for purchase. All prices indicated on our website are in US Dollars and subject to change at any time at our sole discretion. Applicable sales taxes might be added to your order during the checkout process.
Watercolor Academy Terms of Service
By enrolling in the Watercolor Academy, you confirm that you have read and agreed to these Terms of Service.
Membership Registration
To register as a Watercolor Academy member, you must be at least 18 years of age. You agree that the information that you provide to us upon registration, at the time of purchase, and at all other times will be true, accurate, current, and complete. You also agree to ensure that this information is kept accurate and up to date at all times. This is especially important with respect to your email address, since that is the primary way in which we will communicate with you about your account and your orders.
Password
When you register as a Watercolor Academy Course member, you will be asked to provide a password. You are responsible for safeguarding the password, and you agree not to disclose your password to any third party. You agree that you shall be solely responsible for any activities or actions under your password, whether or not you have authorized such activities or actions. You shall immediately notify Watercolor Academy of any unauthorized use of your password.
Watercolor Academy Course Duration
As a Watercolor Academy member, you will have a lifetime access to the Watercolor Academy Online Course Content. The Online Course students can rely on unlimited Personal Support from the Academy tutors, and the Correspondence Course students can rely on Personal Tutoring from the Academy tutors for the duration of these courses. The term "lifetime" refers to the lifespan of the product.
Delivery of the Course Content
The Watercolor Academy course content is intangible and delivered online. It is available 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, excluding short periods of necessary technical maintenance and content updates. There are no DVDs, physical books, or other tangible deliverable products.
The Watercolor Academy Online Course content includes 80 video lessons. These lessons are streamed online and can be watched on any internet-connected device that supports industry-standard HTML5 video streaming.
The video lessons can be watched online only. A member can watch video lessons as many times as one wishes. There are no deadlines, no limitations.
Downloading video lessons to a member's computer or other device is strictly prohibited. This policy protects our copyrighted products' distribution. Any violation of this policy will be prosecuted in accordance with international laws and will result in membership cancellation without any refunds.
The Watercolor Academy Students Handbook is available in PDF format and can be read online or downloaded.
The delivery of products is deemed full and complete upon a member receives an access to a Watercolor Academy account of the "members-only" area, regardless whether a member consumed the products he or she has access to. The term "consumption" here means watching any of the video lessons or reading any of the educational materials or contacting the tutors for personal support and tutoring.
Delivery of the Personal Support
As a Watercolor Academy Online Course member, you will have a lifetime of unlimited access to Personal Support from the Academy tutors. Such support includes artwork critiques, answers to student's art-related questions, and advice on how to improve drawing skills.
If you, as a member, would like to receive artwork critiques, answers, or advice, it is your responsibility to contact the Watercolor Academy tutors. You can submit your artworks and questions via email. You can connect with us at any time. Every submission is usually replied to within 48 hours.
Please note, by sending us your artworks and questions, you give us the full permission to use your content as we deem necessary. Your artworks, together with our critique or feedback, may be shared online and published on our website to teach and inspire other students and users. If you don't want your full name to be published, you are welcome to use a pseudonym.
Delivery of the Personal Tutoring
As a Watercolor Academy Correspondence Course student, you will have a lifetime one-to-one Personal Tutoring by the Academy tutors. Such tutoring includes your drawing skills level assessment, creation of a custom-tailored curriculum of up to 100 art tasks, detailed instructions for every task, assessments of your reports, critique of your task drawings, and advice on improving your skills.
As a Correspondence Course student, you will have a dedicated team of art tutors who will provide Personal Tutoring. Depending on availability, any of the tutors can step in and give you the necessary instructions, critique, and feedback. All tutors will be in the loop as to your progress, so the correspondence tutoring will go smoothly regardless of who is available and who works with you at any given time.
One-to-one tutoring will be provided via email. Keeping correspondence in writing allows us to keep the full track of tasks given, as well as your reports and our feedback. This also enables every Academy tutor to be in the loop of the tutoring provided. Verbal instructions or feedback can be forgotten by the next day; tutoring in writing will be with you for as long as you keep it. That is why we won't use any other means of communication, such as Skype, phone calls, messengers, video-conferences, etc.
Personal Tutoring working principles
- Personal tutoring will be provided only via email for reasons described above.
- Upon enrollment in the Watercolor Academy Correspondence Course, you will receive a Welcome email from the Academy tutors with instructions for your first steps.
- You will be given an art test you need to complete as instructed. This will enable us to evaluate your current level of art skills and create an individual curriculum tailored to your level of skills and needs.
- Your individual curriculum will consist of up to 100 practical watercolor painting tasks. Such a curriculum is for tutors' eyes only and can be amended from time to time, depending on your progress and at the tutors' discretion.
- You will be given an in-depth critique of your art-test artworks and indication of the skill gaps you have. You will also receive a general description of what art skills you will learn in this course according to your curriculum and what topics our custom-tailored tutoring will cover.
- You will be provided with instructions of what art materials to get and how to arrange your working space.
- Drawing tasks will be given to you one by one, progressing from simple to more advanced watercolor painting exercises.
- You cannot skip given tasks. Every exercise is designed to give you practical drawing skills required for next, more advanced steps.
- The next task will be given after you complete the previous one with the required quality. It might take several attempts to achieve satisfactory results. This is normal, and you have to be prepared for repetitive work.
- There are no deadlines and no time pressures. You can study at your own pace. Keep in mind that to complete up to 100 tasks, you have to come up with a realistic schedule.
- You must arrange and follow your own learning schedule, which you must share with the Academy tutors so the tutoring can be scheduled accordingly at our end.
- It is your responsibility to report on your progress. We won't chase you. The frequency of your reports must be at least weekly.
- If we don't hear from you for more than one month, we might decide that you have dropped out. In such a case, we reserve the right to downgrade your Correspondence Course membership to the self-study Online Course level.
- Should your membership be downgraded, no refunds will be issued.
- Upgrading from the Online Course back to the Correspondence Course will require a one-time payment and can be done at any time.
- Should you upgrade your membership after dropping out previously, you will continue receiving tutoring from the last task that was given to you by the tutors.
- In addition to our tasks, we encourage you to work on your own creative projects. However, you cannot replace our watercolor painting tasks with your projects. You need to do them in addition to, not instead of given tasks.
- Should you decide to send your creative artworks for critique, you will receive our feedback. However, we cannot provide step-by-step instructions on how to improve your creative artworks if they require skills you have not yet developed by doing art tasks that yet to come. This would be jumping over the topics we haven't covered yet, and as such would interrupt and slow down your learning curve.
- Personal tutoring will be provided till you complete the full curriculum of watercolor painting tasks.
- A Watercolor Academy Diploma of Excellence will be given in your name upon the Correspondence Course completion. Thereafter, you will continue to have our full support, including artwork critiques for a lifetime.
- You agree that, from time to time, we may share and publish artworks you send us along with our critique and feedback on our website(s) for other students and users to see and learn from. If you don't want your full name to be published, you are welcome to choose a pen name.
- When sending images as attachments, please resize them to make them email-friendly. A resized image must be under 250Kb and at least 2000px wide. If you don't have Photoshop or other software for editing photos, you can do it online, for example here: https://imageresizer.com
Exhibiting Artworks in the Watercolor Academy Students Gallery
As a Watercolor Academy member, you will have an opportunity to exhibit your works of art in our online Students Gallery. This is not a right but a members-only privilege.
Exhibiting your works in our Gallery gives you an opportunity to tell the world you are a student of the Watercolor Academy. Further, we may promote your page to the community of our newsletter readers, bringing more attention to your art.
You can submit your artworks by sending them as attachments via email.
Please note, Watercolor Academy Gallery is not a free-for-all social network, and as the Gallery curators, we have the right to choose which submitted artworks will be exhibited. We will provide a feedback and notify you via email if and when your artwork goes live. This might take a few days.
Diploma of Excellence
The Watercolor Academy Diploma of Excellence is given to commemorate the course completion. However, it is not issued automatically; you have to apply for it.
Online Course members can apply for the Diploma of Excellence online at any time after three months since enrollment. Correspondence Course members can apply for a diploma upon completing the curriculum tasks.
There are no graduation exams, but we would like to know your opinion about the course and see your drawing skills progress. That is why you will need to send us your feedback and photos of drawings you did before or at the beginning of the course and after the course.
Your feedback and artworks may be shared and published online for other students and users to see and learn from. If you wish to keep your full name confidential, you may choose to use a pseudonym. You need to provide your full name to be written correctly on the Diploma.
Watercolor Academy membership does not end after receiving the Diploma. You can continue to enjoy unlimited access to the course content and Personal Support from the Academy tutors for a lifetime.
Membership Cancellations
Our students can cancel their Watercolor Academy membership at any time by sending a request to our Support team.
Cancellation of membership does not provide a refund; it simply closes your Watercolor Academy account and terminates the access to the course by removing your username and password from our database.
Rejoining the Watercolor Academy after cancellation
You can rejoin the Watercolor Academy Course after cancellation by purchasing it once again. However, we cannot guarantee current fees, as the course price may go up in the future.
Watercolor Academy Online Course Access Limitations
Access might be limited to a certain number of IP addresses a member logs in from per day. Such limitation is imposed to avoid membership access abuse when a member's login details become compromised.
To avoid your account being blocked by the system, keep your username and password safe and do not disclose them to any third party.
Suspension and Termination of Access and Membership
You agree that Watercolor Academy may at any time and without notice suspend or terminate any part of the Service, or refuse to fulfill any order or any part of any order, or terminate your membership, at Watercolor Academy's sole discretion, if you fail to comply with this Policy or applicable laws.
System requirements
In order to fully benefit from the Watercolor Academy, you need to have an internet-connected device with an up-to-date web browser and HTML5 video playback functionality enabled.
Video lessons are streamed over the internet, and sufficient connection speed is required.
It is your responsibility to ensure you have a video-ready device and web browser before purchasing the course.
Technical and Customer Support
We provide all necessary customer support. You can contact us, and we will be happy to help.
