The Art Garage started in founder Monica Foye’s actual garage! “I wanted to teach my boys about art and give them an opportunity to get a little messy and figured it would be more fun with a few friends. We soon outgrew my kitchen and moved to the only other place that was safe to sling paint: the garage. Nowadays, our studio is filled with happy sounds of earnest artists learning and growing and creating. My hope is that The Art Garage will always feel like home. My goal would be that all feel welcomed and encouraged to start their own creative journey here.”

Read more about our story here: theartgaragejax.com/ourstory.

• Year-round weekly art classes (spring semester and fall semester) for K HERE.-12th. Read more and register HERE.

• Adult weekly art classes - read more and register HERE.

• 4 or 5 day Summer Art Camps June - August for K-12th. Read more HERE.

• Private Painting Events by request on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Read more and request a date HERE.

We DO! We offer Drawing classes and Painting classes for adults (and teens 6th grade+. These classes teach students how to draw more realistically using graphite and charcoal techniques. There is NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED to attend Drawing 1. Check out our Drawing Series at the adults classes section on our website to learn more and register!

We do not currently offer specialized classes other than our Drawing and Painting Series for artists from 3rd grade through adult. However, both our weekly art classes and our summer camps complete tons of fun projects using all kinds of mediums!

We do not currently offer one time classes, as we are focusing our resources and materials on making our weekly art classes and summer camps the best that they can be!

Weekly classes introduce students to all the basic elements of art and composition, involve many different techniques and mediums (some of which are acrylic paint on canvas, watercolor, soft pastel, oil pastel, clay and mixed media). ALL class levels complete projects with all kinds of mediums. We also touch on famous works of art and historical art movements. Our weekly Art Classes are offered Spring and Fall in two separate semesters.

We provide enrolled families with a project schedule at the beginning of each semester that shows an overview of what each class level is working on, what mediums they are using, and what art techniques they’re learning. Every schedule is planned out with the idea of students learning skills that build upon themselves as the semester continues.

Read more about our weekly art classes on our website HERE.

YES!!! We believe that art is for EVERYONE, so our classes are NOT skill or experience based - they are divided by grade. This helps students create bonds with classmates their age. It also helps our team create a more effective project schedule and teaching style for each age group. “Beginning Art”, “Art 1”, and “Art 2” are not indicators of skill or experience. Every student is meant to be in each class level for a few years, building on the grammar and techniques they are learning.

These are the class levels we offer:

• Beginning Art (K-2nd)

• Art 1 (3rd-5th)

• Art 2 (6th-12th)

We want your student to feel comfortable at our studio and enjoy their experience with us! We totally understand wanting to give it a trial run before you fully register.

We offer a *FREE* 1-hour “Sneak Preview” class for *First-Time Art Garage visitors who have not registered for the semester. Each Sneak Preview class is taught by an Art Garage teacher in the style of a typical semester’s class - students will go home with a completed project. This class is also an opportunity for parents to get more information about our semesters, and get more familiar with our studio space.

This Sneak Preview is held the week before the semester begins, so please note that our classes do fill up and there is a possibility that a specific date and time may have limited availability that close to the semester.

Registration for this free sneak peek class will be available prior to each semester’s start and is first come, first serve.

Shoot us an email at theartgaragejax@gmail.com if you are interested in checking out the studio.

YEP! We love to welcome artists even after the semester has already begun! You will be able to register directly through the website “Art Classes” page - we will see your registration, but feel free to shoot us an email as well so that we can get you any pertinent parent info for that semester.

*We do have a registration cut off around the middle of the semester due to supplies purchased, and we want to make sure your artist will have a good experience with our projects as well as get the chance to submit artwork for our Student Showcase at the end of each semester. You will see on our registration pages if this is the case.

It is always our 1st priority to provide your student the best experience in class, and to help them complete their projects. We encourage you to try your best to attend your regularly scheduled class time. However, we understand that life happens and we want to help your student complete their project. All of our Art Garage teachers care deeply about your students’ creative journeys, and we encourage our teachers to exercise their own creativity with teaching. We also place high value on creating teacher-student connections. We can’t “recreate” the class experience that they missed, but we can do our best to help them complete their project by:

1. Helping them catch up with the project at their next scheduled class (in some cases, having a partially made project ready for them to complete), OR;

2. Sending materials home and talking them through it if they miss a project day.

Nope! When you register, you’ll make a once-per-semester Supply Fee payment that covers EVERYTHING your student will use to create throughout the semester, including watercolor paper, brushes, paints, pastels, pencils, canvases, clay, etc.

We do recommend students “dress for mess” when attending art class, as while many of our products claim to be washable this is not always necessarily the case.

Our studio has 2 portions of our financial aspect:

1. Supply Fee. Paid Once Per Semester at time of Registration. This supply fee is required at registration due to our buying supplies in bulk ahead of the semester starting. The supply fee covers everything students need to create, including papers, canvases, pencils, watercolor and acrylic paints, soft and oil pastels, charcoal, clay, scissors, glue, anything that we will be needing to provide to make sure artists can create amazing projects with creative freedom!

2. Monthly Tuition. Equal monthly payment paid on the first of each month of classes. This payment is divided EVENLY among the entire semester and divided by the total number of months of class, and does not change based on the number of classes attended or the number of weeks in a calendar month. The tuition covers everything else needed to run our classes, including teachers to instruct your artists clearly and with encouragement, a studio to provide a safe environment to experiment with artistry, as well as our end of semester Student Showcase, which is a FREE open to the public event that celebrates the hard work of our students.

At the end of every semester, we take down all the art on our walls and transform our studio into a Student Showcase full of that semester’s student’s proudest works. Artists pick their favorite projects they worked on with us this semester and we hang them up for family/friends to see! The Showcase is a FREE, PUBLIC event that we HIGHLY ENCOURAGE all enrolled artists to attend, and invite as many of their family and friends they would like to celebrate their hard work!

Showcase is typically in May (Spring semester) or December (Fall semester), and held on a Friday or Saturday evening between 5-8PM (drop-in style!). Details are provided to currently enrolled families via email near the end of the semester.

Parents are free to drop off and run errands during class time, or to spend time in our lobby while class is going on. We do ask that you sit in the lobby rather than in the studio to help keep artists focused on the projects they are completing.

All class levels can expect between 8-14 students in any given class. Enrollment levels may vary depending on the day/time of the class. Our goal is to have at least 8 students per class to provide a great learning atmosphere for students and teachers.

Classes in our front studio room comfortably hold 12-14 students. Classes in our back studio comfortably hold 8 students.

Each student receives 2 guest passes for the semester to invite an age-appropriate friend/family member to attend a single class with them for free! *Must schedule with us ahead of time by filling out the form at theartgaragejax.com/guestpass.

Send us a date request through our website form by clicking HERE. Once it is determined that your date and a teacher are available, we will email you an invoice for a $100 deposit which secures your date. The remaining balance ($295 or the appropriate amount for your RSVPs) and final headcount are due 48 hours prior to your event. This will be paid via emailed invoice, sent to the email you used to request your event date.

Most private events last approximately 2 hours - one hour for everyone to follow along with the step-by-step paint-on-canvas project, and the second for any additional items on your event’s agenda (cake, gifts, etc.).

We provide everything you would need to create: the venue, instructor, canvases, brushes, paints, and palettes!

Feel free to bring any food, drinks, and/or gifts/decorations. Just remember to bring the correlating necessary paper products, such as plates, cups, napkins, serving utensils, and ice.

*You are welcome to bring adult beverages to private events for individuals of the legal drinking age.

Our studio can comfortably accommodate up to to 16 participants. The total for private events ($395) covers up to 10 participating adults OR 12 participating kids. Any additional participants can be added on for $30 (kids) or $35 (adults) each.

We do not offer custom painting requests for our private events at this time. We have a large selection of painting samples that you can check out and choose from HERE.

Summer camps are only one week long (either 4 or 5 days), while regular classes during the spring and fall are 1 hour a week for 18 weeks (Spring) or 13 weeks (Fall). Summer camps will tend to work on more projects a day, while regular classes work on 1-2 week projects and build on the techniques that they’ve learned gradually.

Both regular classes AND summer camps come out with really incredible projects that hopefully students have a ton of fun creating!!

If your artist is going into Kindergarten the upcoming fall, YES you are welcome to register your 4 year old for a K-5th camp. The main goal is for them to be able to sit still and focus on following step by step art instructions for about 20 minutes at a time. Especially for our younger camps, we take energy/attention spans into consideration and plan frequent snack breaks so that students can re-engage with projects easily!

We do not currently offer extended care for any of our summer camps, so please take note of the end time of the camp you register for and plan accordingly if you need to coordinate pick up for your artist.

It depends on the personality of your 5th grader! You know your artist best, and we want them to have a great time with us! We view 5th grade as a “bridge year” - truly, 5th graders will have a great time in either camp.

The main difference is the dynamic of the camp. Most of the time, K-5th camps tend to be a lot more energetic since the youngest possible camper could be 4 years old. Many times we do see a great mix of all grades, so if your 5th grader enjoys good energy and a quick-moving project schedule, the K-5th camp would be a great fit!

Our 5th-9th grade camps are catered to an older audience so they tend to work on projects for longer periods of time. If you have a 5th grader who enjoys focusing more time on a single project, this may be the camp for them!

1. YES FOR MESS CLOTHES. We will be working on projects that are VERY MESSY. Most materials we use claim to be washable, but that has not always been our experience. The Art Garage does not provide art smocks but you are welcome to bring these as well!

2. SNACK/LUNCH EVERY DAY. We will have 1 snack time per day of camp for Half Day Campers, and 2 snack times and 1 lunch time for Full Day Campers. We will email all parents IF there will be any snacks offered by The Art Garage to ensure the safety of our allergy-prone artists.

3. TOWEL TO SIT ON. We may have campers sit outside to eat their lunch/snack, and towels will be much more comfortable and cleaner than concrete!

4. SUNSCREEN. We want to keep our campers safe in the sun during our outdoor art projects and snack times.

We do not provide lunch or snack for any camp, so PLEASE send snacks (AND lunch for Full Day camps) every day of camp with your student.

We will have 1 snack time scheduled per day for Half Day Campers and 2 snack times and 1 lunch time scheduled per day for Full Day Campers.

We do tend to bring a surprise snack for students to the last day of camp to celebrate the end of the week. If your student has food/allergy restrictions, please use our “Notes/Allergy” box on the registration page to indicate that and we will accommodate the snack to their needs.