Art Classes
I really enjoy teaching art to both adults and kids and helping people discover their art! Because my classes are focused on process – exploring tools, media and techniques you can play with and carry forward into future art projects – both beginners and experienced artists will find something to enjoy. Want to make art with me? Here’s where I’ll be teaching in 2025 (and please reach out to me if you’re interested in hosting an arty class, team-building event or party!):
January 8: Mark-Making & Meditation | 6-7:30pm at Piedmont Avenue Library
Learn how to create patterns, lines, textures and shapes – and how you can use it in your art and crafts as well as how it can help you relax and loosen up your creativity. We’ll experiment with various tools and found objects and different media, including pens and paint. Audience: Adults | Details
January 21: Draw a Bird! | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
At our first class of 2025 we’ll be learning to draw birds! Whether you’ve been inspired to draw birds after reading Amy Tan’s The Backyard Bird Chronicles or you just want to draw cute “birbs,” come learn how to look at birds, recognize their unique features and break them down into simple shapes to draw realistic or stylized birds. For extra fun, you can take note of the first bird you see this year (a tradition many birders follow) and draw it to preserve the memory. Audience: Adults | Details
February 12: Plant Drawing Party! | 6-7:30pm at Piedmont Avenue Library
Take a break from winter by making some fresh botanical art! We’ll learn how plants are constructed so we can break them down into simple shapes using ink. Learn how to sketch from life or your imagination, practice some contour drawing and have fun! Audience: Adults | Details
February 18: Art from the Heart | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
Paint and print fantastic colorful custom tissue papers in the style of Eric Carle and turn them into collage art. Audience: Adults
March 12: Papercut & Collage an Inspirational Message | 6-7:30pm at Piedmont Avenue Library
Inspired by the work of Lynn Giunta, we’ll spend some time thinking of positive messages that are meaningful to us and then decorating papers and creating a fun papercut collage to share your reminder with yourself or others. Audience: Adults | Details
March 18: Blotted Line Ink Drawing: Draw Like Andy Warhol | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
If you can trace a picture, you can make cool retro art reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s drawings! We’ll use nib pens and tracing paper to transfer an image to watercolor paper. Warhol used this easy technique to create advertising art early in his career. Audience: Adults | Details
April 9: Natural Object Printing | 6-7:30pm at Piedmont Avenue Library
In this class, we’ll use natural objects like leaves, flowers, and vegetables to experiment with different techniques for creating positive and negative prints of plants on paper. Come play with shape, pattern, and texture as we celebrate spring! Audience: Adults | Details
April 15: Flower Power: Easy Tricks to Draw Beautiful Flowers | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
April showers bring colorful flowers! Whether you want to draw realistic flowers or draw from your imagination, we’ll practice looking at flowers, learning their parts and breaking them down into simple shapes for easier drawing and painting. Create a reference page, a plant portrait or an entire bouquet! Audience: Adults | Details
May 14: Scrape Painting | 6-7:30pm at Piedmont Avenue Library
Create beautiful, colorful, abstract art using scrape painting! Drop paint onto paper and drag it into unique designs with a card, scraper, or squeegee (which were invented in Oakland!). Turn your creations into one-of-a-kind art, gift tags, bookmarks, or garlands. Audience: Adults | Details
May 20: Collaborative Paintings: Making Art Together | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
In this fun community-building exercise, each participant gets one color and we all work together to create a series of paintings, as you add your color to the painting in front of you and then move on to the next one. Everyone will get to take home an artwork or two made by the entire group. Audience: Adults
June 11: Make a Zine | 6-7:30pm at Piedmont Avenue Library
Create and illustrate your own mini booklet on a topic of your choice! In this class, we’ll learn how to fold a zine from a single sheet of copy paper, practice brainstorming techniques, and use mind maps to organize ideas. You’ll then transfer your ideas to paper using a combination of writing, drawing, stamping, and collage. Whether you want to create an illustrated poem, a booklet of your favorite quotes, an homage to the birds in your backyard, a guide to the best breakfast burritos in your hometown, or anything in between, a zine is a fun and fast way to collect and share your ideas. Audience: Adults | Details
June 17: Play with Watercolor | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
Learn watercolor basics and then how to create some fun special effects in your art using various tools and household objects like salt, string and rice. Audience: Adults
July 15: Make a Seed Packet Illustration | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
Celebrate summer and Montclair’s seed lending library by designing your own seed packet-inspired art. Paint, collage or stamp flowers or plants and add lettering with handwriting, stamps or collage. We’ll look at the components of seed packets and learn some plant-drawing tricks (and a few ways to create art without drawing, like collage or stamping). Will you feature your favorite flower, a poisonous plant or a magical herb from your favorite story or your imagination? Audience: Adults
July 19: Found Object Printing | 2:00pm at Castro Valley Library
Using found and upcycled materials like string, bubblewrap, cardboard, kitchen utensils and corks, we’ll stamp patterns and pictures to create mini works of art and have fun exploring new ways to use familiar materials as we make 3×3″ artworks for the library’s summer Tiny Art program. Audience: All ages
July 27: Tiny Collage | 3:00pm at Castro Valley Library
Using found and decorated papers, we’ll create 3×3″ collages – abstract or figurative or somewhere in between! We’ll experiment with cutting and tearing the paper to get different effects, and provide materials and ideas to allow participants to decorate their own papers with marks and patterns before collaging them. Audience: All ages
August 23: Macro View | 2:00pm at Castro Valley Library
Using viewfinders (pieces of cardboard with a square cut out) inspired by Sister Corita Kent’s “finders” to focus our attention, we’ll practice focusing on a small part of a big thing and draw what we see in the viewfinder to create 3×3″ artworks for the library’s summer Tiny Art program. Audience: All ages
August 19: Paint Your Pet | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
With a simple tracing technique (no drawing experience required!) and pop art inspired colors, create a one-of-a-kind portrait of your pet (or the pet you wish you had) and capture their unique personality. Bring in a clear, close-up photo of your pet or another animal you want to draw, or use one we provide. Audience: Adults
September 16: Embellishing Photos with Embroidery | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
Learn how to enhance photos with fun hand-stitched details using embroidery floss and simple stitches! Bring your own photo (that you don’t mind poking holes in) or use one of ours. Audience: Adults
October 21: Little Collage Houses | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
We’ll cut out simple shapes from made and found papers and photos and collage them together to create little houses, greenhouses or other structures (maybe even a library?) – or a whole village of them! Audience: Adults
November 18: Found Object Printing | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
Turn trash into treasure by using string, cardboard, buttons, bottle caps, rubber bands, bubble wrap, kitchen tools and other found objects, plus a little imagination, to print beautiful patterns. You’ll never look at your recycling bin the same way again! Audience: Adults
December 16: Design Your Own Mini Art Calendar for 2026 | 6-7:30pm at Montclair Library
Use our template and some of the art techniques we’ve explored this year (like collage, printing and drawing) to make an illustrated or abstract personalized 2026 calendar, and learn some ways to copy, share and display it throughout the year. Makes a great gift! Audience: Adults