WWW.BROOKLYNPAPER.COM 1 METROTECH CENTER NORTH • 10TH FLOOR • BROOKLYN, NY 11201
Youngster can learn to make beautiful
works of art from the comfort of home!
Photo courtesy of Private Picassos
Paint the town, indoors
Park Slope studio offering online art classes
COURIER LIFE, MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 2020 33
BY BEN VERDE
A Park Slope art studio is hosting
online customized art classes, offering
Brooklyn’s would-be van Goghs a
creative outlet while they’re coopedup
in quarantine.
“All children, they thrive on routine,
and when that routine goes out
the window it’s really hard,” said Valeen
Bhat, who runs Fifth Avenue’s
Private Picassos. “It’s important to
keep some kind of learning going.”
The studio is offering both private
custom lessons for kids and families,
along with public group classes, with
prices beginning at $10.
And to further avoid the scary
outdoors, the customized classes will
be molded to whatever materials the
aspiring artists already have in their
home — ensuring they won’t have to
brave the infected outside.
The teachers will also cater to
various ages and skill levels, and offer
classes in several different fi elds
of interest — including drawing
technique, clay modeling, and bookmaking.
The group classes, which will run
for 30 minutes, will work with a predetermined
theme for each class —
like one upcoming class with a “silly
faces” theme — and parents will be
given a list of the necessary materials
beforehand, which Bhat says are
kept as simple as possible and include
household items and recycled
materials that most houses would
have on hand to begin with.
And the projects students work on
will be perfectly suited for a cramped
Brooklyn apartment, Bhat says, with
no need for a professional studio.
“We don’t have big houses, I don’t
have a craft room set up,” she said.
“I’m just trying to keep it as real as
possible.”
The studio had been running private
in-home classes for years before
the recent stay-at-home mandates,
and Bhat says they hope to keep their
video classes as similar to their existing
programming as possible.
“We’re trying to keep it similar to
the in-home classes we were previously
running,” she said. “It’s not a
one size fi ts all, it’s not a script we’re
reading, we’re going to be totally live
interacting with the students in realtime.”
Online art classes at Private Picassos
(www.privatepicassos.com/
online-art-classses) Private classes:
$64 per class for one student, $90 per
class for two students, $100 per class
for three siblings. Group classes: Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays from
10-10:35 am. $10 per class.
/WWW.BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
/online-art-classses
/online-art-classses
/
