The Art Center
Art Classes
Just ask the hundreds of kids and adults who have taken our art classes in New York since 1995: The Art Center makes learning fun! Our after-school and Saturday art classes for children in New York are structured as a series of age-appropriate projects that are both challenging and enjoyable. Each year your child will master increasingly difficult skills in drawing, painting and sculpture. Older children and teens create their own projects and work on personal areas of interest. Our one-hour art classes in New York have a 5:1 ratio of students to teachers, so your child always receives personal attention. Our adult art classes in NYC are always two hours long for maximum enjoyment and skill building. A generous snack is always provided!
All classes are pro-rated to accommodate late enrollments without penalty.
If your child is a new student, he or she is eligible to take a $40 trial class ($50 for any of our 2-hour classes) to see if it’s a good fit. We know it will be!
Current & Upcoming Class Schedules
Or view the schedules for each individual class below left.
Pre-School (Ages 3-4)
Are you ready for your little ones to discover the joy of drawing and painting? Then sign up for our Pre-School art class for kids in NYC ages 3 and 4. This class is a fun-filled introduction to drawing, painting, and sculpture with a focus on exploring art materials. Children will be encouraged to follow sequential steps to achieve control with a pencil, a brush, and clay tools. Your child will be a budding artist in no time!
Class Schedule »4-5 Year Olds
Does your 4- or 5-year-old love to draw or paint? Here at The Art Center, our focused art classes for young learners develop the skills that pre-K kids need to express their creativity and develop beautiful art! Children will continue a fun-filled exploration of the art materials used for drawing, painting and sculpture, but with more focus placed on craftsmanship. In addition, they will be learning to draw the simple shapes used to represent images of people, animals and objects.
Class Schedule »Kindergarten and 1st Grade
We’ll help hone your K-1 student’s artistic talent in this targeted art class for kids in NYC, where projects include self-portraits, clay sculptures of animals, Van Gogh drawings, and abstract papier mache’ sculptures, to name a few. Children will learn basic lessons in proportion, composition, and color mixing that will be incorporated into the projects. Throughout the year, our young artists will learn how to represent people, animals, and objects, using photographic references. We will place continued emphasis on the importance of craftsmanship in drawing, painting, papier mache’ and clay.
Class Schedule »Mixed-Age Group
Our popular mixed-age art classes (for grades 1-5) focus on building solid skills and inspiring creativity. Our curriculum includes a wide variety of drawing, painting, and sculpture projects that are specifically tailored to your child’s age and ability, integrating diverse materials and levels of difficulty. For example, after a particularly challenging drawing project, your student might tackle a freewheeling papier mache’ sculpture. In addition, each year your child is enrolled we step up the skill level required for projects, so your child is continually engaged and challenged.
Class Schedule »Art for Teens
Here at The Art Center, we give your teen the freedom to choose his or her own projects, while providing intensive guidance to help him or her produce the highest quality art. Teens can copy paintings or drawings of master artists to learn and improve technique. We are also increasingly encouraging students to develop original ideas and techniques to better express themselves. Many of our teen students have entered and won in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. For students in grades 5 and up, our teen art classes in New York are the cool choice for creativity!
Class Schedule »Teen Portfolio Workshop
Our Teen Portfolio Workshop is back by popular demand! Each Wednesday from 5-7 pm, our teachers work with your teen to perfect his or her art portfolio for high school or college applications, as well as for art competitions. This class is much like our Art For Teens class, but is two hours long. The extra hour is only $10 more than the one hour class, and gives your teen extra time to develop his or her technique in ever more sophisticated ways.
Class Schedule »Art for Adults
These Upper East Side New York art classes are scheduled with adult learners in mind. Our adult students have developed portraits, Impressionist landscapes and more. You’ll work on a project of your own choosing with guidance and assistance from our outstanding teachers. Adult art students may work in pencil, colored pencil, oil pastels, soft pastels, acrylic or water-based oils – all these basic materials are included, but students are welcome to bring their own supplies if they’d prefer. Got a dream project? We’ll help bring it to life!
Class Schedule »Hand-Built Ceramics
Whether your child is new to clay or loves sculpting functional, beautiful works of art, this class is a perfect fit! Hand-Built Ceramics focuses on skill and technique with both clay and glaze. Our experienced ceramics teacher will encourage the class to use their imagination and observations to create exceptional bowls, mugs, sculptures, and more. 3rd grade and up.
Note: This class is open to adults on Monday or Friday mornings. There is a four student minimum for each class.
Class Schedule »Fashion Design – 4th Grade & Up
Does your child aspire to be the next Dior or Valentino? Then make sure to sign up for one of our Fashion Design classes in the heart of New York, for grades 4th and up. Our talented teachers are fashion professionals who have extensive backgrounds in styling and illustration and will show your child how it’s done! The focus of the class will be on elements of fashion design, using inspiration to create a fashion line, and fashion illustration technique.
Class Schedule »Manga & Cartooning
If your child can’t get enough of Batman comics or Japanese manga, this is the class to take! We focus on creating characters, exaggeration and action techniques, inking and coloring, and more. Our Manga & Cartooning teacher is a professional graphic novel and comic book artist who will teach your child the skills he or she needs to draw cartoons and tell a story. Some cartooning students have even brought in their laptop computers and learned how to draw cartoons using graphic programs. Get your child started on drawing Gotham with this art class in NYC!
Class Schedule »