Courses & Workshops

Travel to the Shedd Aquarium and draw inspiration from coral reefs, octopi, jellyfish and other creatures of the deep! Explore a wide array of materials and techniques to craft your own sea creatures and imaginary ecosystem.

Explore how to visually distort the world around us through experimental photography techniques. Combine the digital and analog processes by printing in the darkroom, collaging imagery, and making 3D photographs in Photoshop.

Learn professional methods for drawing and hand-coloring comic books. Develop characters, and give them a story to tell while learning penciling, inking, and coloring processes to create your own comic books!

Explore life after high school! Visit colleges, meet creative professionals, learn about FAFSA and scholarships, develop your resume, work on personal or artist statements, photograph your artwork, and play with mixed media and bookbinding too!

Learn handbuilding and wheel-throwing techniques to craft functional vessels that represent important people in your lives. Make a teapot-teacher, a mother-mug, or a berry-bowl-best-friend to expresses their personalities through color and design.

Learn techniques to paint realistic faces and dynamic portraits. Bring in pictures of friends or family or use images of your favorite role models or celebrities, then transform them through elaborate ornamentation, including gold leaf!

Take part in designing and creating a large-scale mural by exploring contemporary graffiti art. Develop your own skills through stylized writing, collage, character design, and stencils to express your individuality, culture, and community.

Explore the world through sound! Sound is a part of everyday life - Art, Film, Radio. Develop your own Podcast narratives by learning script writing, sound design using recording devices, and editing software to tell your own story.

Go behind the scenes of the Art Institute of Chicago’s South African political poster exhibition, talk to the curator, and learn the history of art for social justice. Design and screenprint your own political posters to be exhibited in the education center at AIC!

Create your own indoor garden by building pots and planters! Explore handbuilding and wheel-throwing techniques to create your own one-of-a-kind ceramics. Choose a plant to put in your pot and learn how to grow and care for it.

Explore Chicago’s landscape while learning the basics of digital photography. Gain techniques to photograph buildings, streets, and the city in new and interesting ways. Then refine your images using editing software, and share your view of Chicago!

Gain inspiration from street art, hip hop culture, and contemporary art to develop your own graffiti style. Learn graffiti lettering, drawing, and spray painting techniques and use your refined skills to design your own skateboard deck!

Create beautiful and complex images and patterns on fabric using Japanese tie-dye art. Learn how to stitch, tie, clamp, wax, dye and more to develop mesmerizing images, color patterns, or narrative designs on fabric.

Learn the art of knotting -- macrame -- and create wall-hangings or plant hangers using a variety of fibers, materials, and weaving techniques.

Summer is the perfect time to be inspired by nature! Study flowers, leaves, plants, trees, fruits, vegetables, and more. Go on field trips to botanic gardens, study from observation and life, as well as photographs to develop illustrations and watercolor paintings.

Explore the world of sculptural ceramics! Learn to use fun handbuilding techniques to create 3D works of art with meaning. Whatever your interests, through experimentation and practice, you can have the time and space to create what you love.

Experience the process of creating and self publishing your own comics. Be inspired by classic and contemporary comics, learn to storyboard, use traditional illustration techniques, design unique characters, and create your own stories!