Menu
Cart

Create Art Studio

About Create Art Studio

Posts by Create Art Studio:

Create Art Studio Fall Classes and Workshops Toronto studio and online

Our new September classes are ready for you. Let’s go!

,

We’re hoping you’re reading this on a dock or in your backyard, cold drink in hand, and enjoying the summer breeze! We’re doing our best to keep cool as we get ready for the exciting new September art classes in our Fall session. Have you seen them yet?

All of our most popular in-studio and online classes are back, like pottery, drawing and painting. We’ve also added some amazing new ones, including new classes for families to enjoy together!

Classes for younger kids

Weekdays: our After School program, Clay for Kids, Sketch It!, Cartooning and Inspired Artists classes are back!

Weekends: Creating Together is for kids 3-5 to create with their caring adult. Art Club inspires kids 6-8 to explore drawing, painting, sculpture and more!

More kid classes
Create Art Studio After School Program
Create Art Studio tweens and teen pottery wheel and clay sculpture classes

Classes for tweens and teens

Creative kids will love hand-building sculptures and trying the pottery wheel in our Clay classes

Budding fashionistas will love Learn to Sew, Textile Art and Fashion Design

Developing designers will enjoy Digital Illustration, Manga & Anime and Portfolio Prep to take their skills to the next level!

More youth classes

Classes for you to enjoy! 

All of your favourites are here, including Pottery, Learn to Draw and Learn to Paint Acrylics and Watercolours.

Friday Paint Nights are back and we’re also starting Paint Club, a twice weekly social meet up to paint with us, ask advice from our artists and enjoy the positive studio vibes.

More adult classes
Create Art Studio Learn to Paint classes and workshops

Our artist instructors are ready to inspire everyone to be their most creative self. Our most popular classes are already filling up fast, so don’t wait! Explore all of our September Art Classes and Workshops and sign up now!

We can’t wait to see what you’ll create!

Create Art Studio clay classes with wheel and hand-built pottery

Have fun exploring new skills in our Summer Workshops!

,

We’re excited to announce our summer workshop line up, featuring our most popular classes like pottery wheel, painting and drawing, and introducing new crafts such as needle felting, wood burning, and rug making!

With lots of in-studio and online options, and convenient timing to fit your schedule, they’re the perfect way for you to try out different classes before you sign up for a full session. All of our workshops feature small class sizes, so you’ll get tons of helpful guidance and feedback from our knowledgeable and fun instructors!

We can’t wait to see what you’ll create. Join us to get inspired, to learn new skills and to make the most of your Summer time!

Create Art Studio Online Art Camp and Classes for kids

Tips for starting virtual school

, ,

Up until the holiday season, the Create Art team have been running a virtual learning group at the studio. For everyone starting out with virtual school today, here a few tips, based on our experiences:

1. Be kind to the teachers. The majority of them have had literally no training on how to effectively teach online. If they’re lucky, they have a friend who’s been doing virtual school that has given them some tips 😉

2. School this year is OPTIONAL. If you don’t think you/your kid can manage it this week, then let the teacher know that you’re taking the week off for family matters. Then you won’t get those annoying absence calls.

3. No one is getting an award for anything they do this week, though teachers probably should. If you’re a parent, keeping your kids alive and keeping your job are the priorities. Don’t worry about late assignments.

4. Kids love screens. But they love access to YouTube more. Their school accounts give them access to it. We suggest putting all of your kids in the same room, with headphones, and tell them to hold each other accountable. Left in their own rooms, they’ll be barely listening to the lessons while watching as much YouTube as possible.

5. Kids are more resilient than you are. Have an open mind to this and they will do fine.

It’s quite likely, after this week, that it will be very clear why we’ve been operating a virtual learning group program! Virtual learning is great, but it doesn’t work without the right support. Hopefully, we’ll be able to reopen our helpful service for parents and kids soon. 

Did you see us on Breakfast Television?!

, ,

Keeping kids busy this summer

Did you see us on Breakfast Television? We chatted about how parents have a tougher time than ever this year trying to keep kids entertained all summer long. School closures and lack of summer camp options have meant that many families are spending extra time together over the past four months. Chances are that parents have run out of ideas by now. 

Here at Create Art Studio we have you covered! Catch our founder, Jennifer Thompson, as she’s featured on Breakfast Television’s Camp BT for a list of summer boredom busters. 

If you missed it, you can get all the great tutorials right here. Keep your kids entertained whenever they start saying “I’m bored.” 

Our tried and tested projects are kid favourites from our amazing art classes. Need a more regular way to keep your kids entertained this summer? Check out our online class or online camp listings for an option that works for your child (or you – we’ve just added adult classes online!)

Create Art Studio Crown DIY Craft for Kids
Create Art Studio Weaving Art DIY Breakfast Television Camp BT

Making art easy with things around your home (or from our shop) 

With just a few things you probably already have around the house, you can make some amazing art. Our tutorials will show you how.

Don’t have the things you need to make art and craft projects at home? Order some today from our online store! We have mystery bags with a variety of supplies to inspire creativity in kids. 

Not feeling creative enough to create your own art? Our polymer clay art kits have step by step instructions to follow along to create your unique interpretation on our project ideas. Or try a paint your own ceramic project where the toughest decision is choosing which underglaze colours to use. 

Fun for adults too

These may be listed as projects to keep the kids busy, but if we’re being honest, we love a couple of them for ourselves as well. 

Tissue paper art is as meditative as adult colouring books. Spend some time twisting, scrunching and gluing colourful tissue papers onto a picture. The colour copy technique tutorial will also get you hooked – trying out new colour combinations and maybe even trying some inspirational quotes to frame. 

And if you’re a more tech-y person, try out the Robot Hand tutorial. You can even create a secret code in the electrical circuit background! 

Create Art Studio summer boredom busters for kidsTissue Paper Elephant Art DIY Breakfast Television Camp BT

Online Class and Camps

If you’ve made through all our projects and the ones listed on the Breakfast Television Camp BT site and your kid is still bored, try out one of our online class or camp options! For most classes, we deliver a materials kit to you, so there’s no running around trying to buy all the things you need. If we don’t deliver a kit, it’s because you won’t need one. Our popular Sketch It! classes for kids and teens no longer include materials – students will only need things they already have. 

At Create Art Studio, we strive to keep art accessible and open to everyone. We want kids, teens and adults alike to keep nurturing their creativity. Keep checking back for more ideas or sign up for our email list below:

Create Art Studio Covid-19 Update image dog at home looking out window

Temporary Closure

We’ll be at home, until further notice

It has been one week since we had to close the studio doors and what a week it has been. One of moving through the typical stages of shock and grief for most people, I’m sure. That has certainly been the case for me personally.

The most encouraging thing has been the outpouring of support from our customers and fans. We are so grateful for everyone taking their time to send us messages and while we haven’t yet been able to reply to everyone, know that your positive thoughts mean so much.

We are only available by email during this time as no one is in the studio to answer the phone. Please ensure that both our regular hello@createartstudio.ca and our noreply@jackrabbittech.com email addresses are in your ‘safe sender’ lists so that you don’t miss any communications from us.

Current Class Students

For anyone who was in the current session of classes or workshops, we have paused all classes and will resume as soon as we are permitted to safely re-open. If we have an online option for your class, we will send you the details via email once it’s available.

Birthday Parties

In person parties are being rescheduled into May and beyond. Should you not wish to reschedule your party, we have two options:

  1. Apply the fee to another program (can be for any person), merchandise, or service.
  2. Have a virtual birthday party. We provide individually packaged materials and loot bags for guests and lead everyone through a project using an online platform.

After School Program

Our after school families have received a separate, specific email from us – please look out for it.

Online Classes

Online classes are something we have wanted to offer since we began, but the logistics of filming are a bit tricky at the moment. We can’t have the team in the studio to film (even one at a time) due to government restrictions on non-essential business workplaces. So, we’re testing some options and deciding what works best. We want to continue to bring high quality arts instruction to our customers, so we’re not going to settle for just anything online.

Cancellation and Refund Policy

For now, in line with our existing policy on cancellations and refunds, we are only providing credits for future programs for any fees already paid. We are waiving our administration fee of $25 on transfers should you wish to make changes to registrations (change of session/week or change of student).

We are expecting that summer camps will still go ahead as planned. Should this change, we will be in touch with all current registrants.

Keeping busy: Window Art

We’re working on some online resources to keep everyone busy while staying home. One thing we recommend is window art! There are a few lists circulating across social media for what to put in your window on which day. We can’t even remember what day it is though, so we think you can just put up something new in your windows everyday. Whether people are going for walks or drives, it’s fun to look at everyone’s window galleries.

Supporting local small businesses

If you’re local to our studio, you likely know that most of the businesses around us on the Danforth are also small businesses run by local women or women and their partner.

In case you didn’t know, commercial tenants have no government protections for their leases. The landlords hold all the cards. Ours has been helpful in this time, allowing for a partial deferral of April’s rent until we are reopen. That is the major reason why we are hopeful that we’ll be able to weather this difficult time. Other local businesses are not as fortunate. Regardless, everyone is hurting by being closed or not having dine-in options. If you’re able to continue to support online sales or take out/delivery from local businesses, please do!

Stay safe everyone. We hope to see you all very soon!

Jennifer and the Create Art team

Ceramic Studio pottery bearded gnome for painting drop in Create Art Studio

Check out our new Drop-In Ceramics Painting Studio

,

New Drop-In Ceramics Painting at Create Art Studio

This week, our new Ceramic Studio launched in our fantastic, expanded studio space. Featuring a range of fun ready-to-paint ceramics, it’s the perfect way to relax and get creative on a weekday or weekend.

Create Art Studio Ceramics Painting Love Mug
Create Art Studio ceramics painting cactus light
Create Art Studio DIY Unicorn Plate ceramic painting pottery kit to go paint at home activity for kids
Create Art Studio Ceramics Painting Unicorn Mug
Create Art Studio Ceramics Painting at home Spike Monster painted
Create Art Studio Ceramics Painting Friendly Dragon in colour
F1 Maclaren ceramic race car DIY pottery painting at home kit from Create Art Studio
Fire Dragon Ceramic paint your own pottery at home from Create Art Studio

For family and friends, it’s a great way to spend creative time together, to unwind and create special keepsakes for your home, or to give as the perfect gift. Choose from our super cute unicorns, cheeky monsters and dragons, or use a decorative tile or our range of coffee mugs as your canvas.

Our ceramic painting kits mean you can also create amazing gifts and personal projects at home. Select your favourites from our online store and pick them up or choose to have them delivered as complete kits including glazes and paintbrushes.

Explore our ceramic store
Create Art Studio Team Building Van Gogh Starry Night

Team Building through art

,

How art inspires corporate team building

Yesterday, we surprised a group of law firm employees in our studio for a corporate team building event. 

Nervous at the start

As the lawyers and administrators arrived and settled in at our studio for an afternoon for a corporate team building event, our artist instructor James introduced the project: Van Gogh’s Starry Night. We asked the group of 16 colleagues who considered themselves an artist.

Adults working together painting Van Gogh Starry Night at Create Art Studio in TorontoOnly one person raised their hand immediately. One other slowly raised their hand, shy to state that she believed in her talents. Lastly, the group suggested a third person who they considered to have artistic skill. Three people of out 16. Just 19%. If you ask this same question to a group of four year olds, they would ALL say they were artists.

What happens in one’s life journey to change your perception from “I am an artist” to “I’m not an artist”? To answer that, I’d need to write a super lengthy blog post, quoting many research studies. However, that’s not for today! 

As you’re reading this, you might be thinking about your own reasons why you’re not an artist (even if you are – imposter syndrome is very real) or why you just don’t make time for creative projects. That’s what makes an art-based corporate team building event so great – it gives adults an opportunity to do creative activities not normally scheduled in their calendars.

 

Picking up the brushes

As we gave the team the plan for the afternoon, most seemed hesitant, unsure of their ability to complete a rendering of Starry Night across three large canvases, at least to a level they would be proud of.

corporate team building event in progress creating Van Gogh Starry Night at Create Art StudioWe split the co-workers into groups to each work on one canvas and our brilliant artist instructor James coached each group on getting started. They were still hesitant to pick up the brushes. Slowly, each person took a turn applying paint to the canvas, until everyone had a brush in their hand. Each participant was contributing their own artistic style to the canvases, getting more and more comfortable with each stroke.

 

Progress inspires belief (and smiles!)

As they stopped to take a step back and inspect their work, we could see they were starting to believe in their artistic ability. The kindergarten enthusiasm for creating with colour was starting to come back and their sense of accomplishment was really inspiring.

detail work on painting of Van Gogh Starry Night from corporate team building eventTheir faces changed from worry to smiles. The trepidation in their voices turned to joyful laughter. And, most importantly, they brought out their smartphones and started taking pictures to document their progress. 

The teams were really engaged in the project. They helped each other out with suggestions, they complimented each other, they high-fived each other. It was truly uplifting.

Surprise and delight with the finished work!

Once the canvases were nearly finished, we moved them all side by side to line up the edges and make sure the painting would look like a cohesive piece once hung in the boardroom, as they hoped it would.

adults painting Van Gogh Starry Night Create Art Studio Team Building Event

And even more surprising than when they all realized they had artistic ability, there were only five more strokes of yellow paint needed to bring all three canvases of Starry Night together. The team of “not artists” did an spectacular job. So amazing, they were all surprised at the result. The group of 16 law firm employees successfully re-created a classic painting, together.

Van Gogh's Starry Night moon close up from corporate team building eventIt was no small task, they were working on three 30” x 40” canvases, and the team was nervous starting out. By the end of the two hour session, they had managed to create what they thought was going to be impossible. And, created it very well!

1 2