Showcasing two renowned and architecturally unique locations, The Contemporary Austin brings multidisciplinary exhibitions, engaging programs, and enticing special events to the city's visual arts landscape.
The Contemporary Austin is now open in a limited capacity. Click here to learn more.
The Contemporary Austin offers diverse, engaging ways to explore contemporary art and culture, including innovative opportunities and experiences for families, young people, artists, and educators.
The acclaimed Art School at Laguna Gloria offers classes for ages four through adult in painting, drawing, ceramics, printmaking, photography, sculpture, digital media, and more. Spring 2021 registration now open!
Adults
Learn from Giorgio Morandi, the master of still life.
Begin your exploration of abstract painting!
Enjoy the brilliant colors of fast-drying acrylics and learn to build layers of textures and washes in landscape, still life, and abstract painting.
Shooting assignments focus on expanding composition skills, understanding light, and becoming comfortable and confident in manipulating manual exposure.
Practice a new drawing medium in each session and enjoy drawing success from the very first class. Refine your technique in a supportive environment for beginners.
Learn about line, value, perspective, and composition as you begin to draw and then improve your skills through quick sketches and completed drawings...
Absolute beginners or those with rusty skills will discover, strengthen, and hone painting skills during an enjoyable weekend.
Discover, sharpen, and strengthen your skills to approach painting with confidence. Understand oil and acrylic paint and develop a foundation for future work.
Beginners or those with minimal experience learn different ways to start paintings, use paint as a wash or with texture, and practice old master techniques.
This 2 day workshop will cover basic paper folding techniques that will result in 4-5 books for you to take home.
Develop basic design skills for artistic and commercial applications through a variety of student projects, lectures, and demonstrations.
Beginners are introduced to the watercolor medium while intermediate-level students advance technique and skills through practice and critiques...
Break away from traditional landscape painting and explore color, shape, and brushwork in a new class that explores the connection between landscape forms and abstract painting.
All levels are welcome in this information-packed class taught by a national award–winning children’s book author and illustrator.
Come outside and paint Austin’s waterways “en plein air”
Learn complete manual control of a camera. While using a digital SLR is essential, you will subsequently be able to pick up any camera and make a manual exposure.
Age 4–5, Parent & Child
Creative young artist-scientists will observe and re-create the beauty and color found in nature, especially insects, learning how art and biology intersect.
Children learn to paint, draw, and sculpt fish and other underwater creatures and plants while exploring basic art vocabulary.
Age 6–8
Venture into real and imaginary worlds with the stroke of a marker, the rub of charcoal, and the glide of pastels.
Create realistic paintings and express your artistic spirit in both bold and delicate colors using skillful brushstrokes.
Create your own textured paintings inspired by the beauty of Vincent van Gogh’s imaginative, beloved style and explore the techniques of colorful, self-taught painter Henri Rousseau.
Age 9–11
Venture into real and imaginary worlds with the stroke of a marker, a piece of charcoal, and pastels while learning more advanced design and drawing skills.
Set up a palette, blend brilliant colors, and use different types of brushes. Create volume with light and make shadows in a still life, paint a landscape, and more..
Stop animation—but so easy! Use provided iPads or your own mobile device to make a movie.
Make your own clay cartoon, then create a movie set and animate a mini-movie with your creature as the star. Discover secrets and tricks to make…
Go deeper into the many photographic possibilities of iPhones and other smart phones.
Further develop basic skills in this perfect follow-up to the introduction to painting received in Painting I: Short Form.
Ages 14-18
Get the most out of your digital camera! Move step-by-step through the important manual digital camera functions as you begin to understand the importance of light and...
Explore the fundamentals of relief printing through traditional printmaking tools and chine-collé.
Age 4–5, Age 6–8, Age 9–11, Ages 12-14, Ages 14-18
Spend spring break with us! Courses in various subject areas are offered for children ages 4-14.
Use watercolor to explore the development of abstract form from an observed reality in a free and spontaneous way.
Learn how working large loosens up individual style and enables artists to make a powerful statement.
Explore the open-ended and fun medium of collage to create unique works of art!
Integrate book making, printmaking, and hand-painted papers into your collages!
A hands-on tour of drawing, painting, watercolor, and collage, including foundational principles and language that can be used across disciplines.
Enjoy and examine the native plants in your own backyard/local parks and trails/(or florist) as your subjects.
Add color to your repertoire by drawing with colored pencils. Explore layering, burnishing, and dissolving the waxy pencil to create luminous works of art.
Expand your visual acumen through study of the proportions, contours, volumes, and details of the head and face.
Absolute beginners use a variety of materials including charcoal and Conté crayon and employ basic principles of drawing while working from a live model.
Learn how to create abstract drawings using natural forms as inspiration.
Let's get out of the studio and experience nature!
Explore options, gain clarity on tools and techniques for both realistic and abstract styles, and learn practical skills and time-saving tips.
Conquer a variety of abstract painting techniques, including abstracting real objects, intuitive painting, and gestural works.
Learn how to render botanical subjects in a realistic manner. Explore the work of the Dutch masters of still life, impressionist florals, and contemporary…
Learn the basics of color theory and some new mixed media painting techniques while exploring the geometries, beauty, and surprises found in nature.
Work from a live model or personal photographs to expand your skills through study of the proportions, contours, volumes, and details of the head and face.
Beginners and those needing a refresher course alike will gain insight into the wonderful medium of watercolor during an enjoyable, challenging weekend.
This workshop-style class picks up where Watercolor Basics and Beyond leaves off, featuring new exercises and demos that focus on value, pattern, and color.
This part workshop, part self-paced drawing and painting lab is designed as a follow-up to our Children's Book Illustration course!
Learn to prepare blocks, draw, carve, and print while examining the history of relief printmaking with an emphasis on contemporary art.
Have you ever wanted to print your own T-shirts, posters, or cards? Master the fundamentals of screen printing so you can experiment confidently.
Adults, Ages 14-18
Customize your own “art bike” in this exciting workshop in collaboration with the Austin Yellow Bike Project!
Learn the basics of manipulating and joining metal to create objects from simple tables to conceptual sculpture.
Bring the heat in this exciting class that combines MIG and oxy-acetylene welding with forging.
Expand your skills, practice MIG (metal inert gas) welding techniques, and become more familiar with oxy-acetylene and hot form steel.
Fabricate a wood and metal project as you familiarize yourself with material attributes, proper tool usage, and shop safety while learning the basics of welding and woodworking.
This class covers the fundamentals of fine woodworking and is perfect for those with no experience wanting to learn their way around the wood shop.
Beginner-to-intermediate woodworkers work on independent projects in an open studio format...
Using nonferrous materials like copper, brass, and nickel, learn to create a two-to-three-layered, expressive pendant using all the basic jeweler’s tools.
Beginners and experienced carvers alike will create through the interaction of dynamic shapes, lines, and volume and carve stone into abstract or figurative sculptures.
Using stoneware clay, gain a working knowledge of techniques such as slab construction, classic coil, pinched vessels, and throwing elemental wheel forms.
Beginners cover the basics of hand building and wheel throwing, while experienced students build on previous lessons, refine techniques, and create vessels.
Beginners will be introduced to basic shapes while experienced potters will expand skills and explore forms such as lidded jars and large objects.
Explore inventive hand-building techniques for making functional pottery in this fun and informative class.
Learn how clay vessels have been built through history. Use basic forming techniques and add a personal touch to your work while exploring early clay forms.
Focus on surface and further skills in techniques including mishima and sgraffito. Learn to make underglaze decals and ceramic printing inks.
Explore and realize your own visions. Focus on narrative work employing human and animal forms, and develop and execute your own visual vocabulary.
Expand your understanding of stoneware or porcelain, under-glaze colors, and high-fire glazes.
Learn the basics and develop your editing skills to transform your photos into richer, more visually interesting images.
Explore the potential of the iPhone camera, including the best apps for creating artistic images and amazing examples of work by professional photographers.
Create beautiful and functional pieces using glass, marbles, stones, mirrors, dishes, and tiles in this class suitable for beginners.
Steef Crombach leads students in learning her variation on the traditional Indonesian batik method of wax-guarded dyeing, which she has spent years perfecting.
Learn the basics of making cloth on a loom. We will cover planning a project, choosing yarns, warping and setting up the loom, and weaving itself.
If you have some familiarity with weaving, this class will guide you through your own projects. Review materials and techniques, then tackle design and work independently.
Homeschool
Explore 3-D! Clay and other media are used to practice creating art in three dimensions while students learn about history’s notable sculptors.
Focus on art history of the 20th and 21st centuries while exploring formal elements and design principles and strengthening artistic skills.
Students will generate and conceptualize artistic ideas into 3-D forms while studying traditional and contemporary examples from art history.
Use a variety of mediums to take your artistic skills to a new level! Each class has a different theme: portraiture, still-life composition, figure drawing, capturing landscapes, and more.
Ages 12-14
Study drawing and painting, exploring form, color, perspective, texture, value, and composition using a realistic approach.
Advance your skills drawing the human form. Create drawings that incorporate movement, large structural relationships, proportions, and line.
Through unusual subject matter and practicing new abstraction techniques, learn to perceive even realistic subjects abstractly.
Make your painting compositions more dynamic! Learn to use contrast, direction, the Golden Mean, color choices, and other elements and principles…
Color schemes can help simplify your choices and add more drama or softness. Learn to use a variety of color schemes to fulfill the purpose of your work.
Learn to perfect your photos by correcting or refining color and exposure, removing blemishes, smoothing out skin, and removing unwanted…
Learn about various techniques for creating outdoor mosaics on dimensional surfaces.
Parent & Child
Bring a point-and-shoot camera or any device with a camera (iPhone/iPad) and learn to make your own movies from beginning to end.
You can create comics while learning to draw! Tell your own stories through the medium of comics and learn drawing and layout skills.