About Us
artKids is an after-school art and drawing program that focuses on building children’s drawing and observational skills – the fundamentals of all art-making – in a fun, supportive, confidence-building environment. Using the elements of art and principles of design, children are taken on an art-making journey, exploring different mediums through the lives and works of famous and contemporary artists, while encouraging individual artistic choices.
artKids teaches children “There are no mistakes or flops in art, only ‘flopportunities’!”
By adding, deleting or re-imagining their art, children learn how to solve problems using creative-thinking skills – life-learning lessons beneficial to all areas of their lives.
artKids is a small-but-dedicated team who love artmaking with your children. What began as an after-school art class taught from my home studio has grown into a thriving creative community for children, their parents and teachers.
All artKids Art Tutors have current Working with Vulnerable People cards and First Aid certification. Find out more about our fabulous team below.
All our workshops focus on learning in a fun, supportive and creative environment. Drawing from the beliefs that everyone is creative, that creativity can be taught and that we can learn to use it with confidence, our art classes are focused on building skills and techniques to enable the student to express their own individual creativity. We use proven techniques to access the student’s creativity and imagination, and practice drawing techniques weekly to build skills and confidence in this fundamental area.
Students are taught in a context of art appreciation, learning how to ‘read’ and critical interpret artworks through games and other visual stimuli.
All our artKids workshops are based on our Art Agreement we have with our students:
- There are no mistakes or flops in art, only ‘flopportunities’!
- I am unique and on my own art journey. I don’t compare myself to others.
- I use kind, positive, supportive words about my own art and other’s art – and I accept kind words too.
As a child, I always drew pictures and wrote stories. As I grew older, I drew less and my creative outlet became creative writing. I became fascinated by the whole creative process – where did it come from, were some people just talented, how could I become more like them?
Through personal experience and extensive research, I created the Absolute Beginners Creative Writing Course which explores how to access the creative right-brain and how to turn down the analytical, critical left-brain. I discovered that we are all Recovering Creatives, striving to throw off ingrained beliefs taken from our childhood, our culture and our relationships with adults and peers, whose off-the-cuff comments affected us more than we ever thought they could.
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When I became a parent, I wanted my children to enjoy and explore their creativity in an environment where there was no judgement, where there was no ‘right way’ to do something, and where their efforts were acknowledged not just the result. I started researching how to foster creativity in children, while at the same time running parent and toddler art and craft sessions from my home. Not surprisingly, it was the parents who often ended up happily doing the art, revelling in the no-judgement scenario of a kids’ craft workshop. I began teaching art and craft to adults, venturing into art journaling and mixed media works.
As my children grew and began primary school, they wanted to learn how to draw – and, of course, they didn’t want to learn from their Mum! I began looking for art classes that aligned with my art-making philosophy – a fun and supportive environment where there were no mistakes, only opportunities to do things differently. But there weren’t any. A chance meeting with a like-minded mother and art-history teacher, and several coffees later, artKids was born.
We began teaching once a week at Brindabella Christian College and shortly after, two more classes out of my home. Almost 10 years later, our artKids workshops and drawing clubs are run daily in 12 schools and Saturday in our Turner studio space, teaching close to 400 students each week. Our artTeens and Realistic Drawing programs developed as our artKids grew up and wanted to learn more, as well as our Anime/Cartooning classes. Our pre-schoolers artTots program of process art classes are gaining popularity each term, and we hope to offer those grown-up kids, our artAdults, some classes in the near future.
Robyn Thurecht, CEO and Founder, artKids Australia
We are expanding and looking for Art Tutors and Art Assistants. Send your CV with relevant work experience working with children, art or teaching to admin@artkidsaustralia.com