The best painting classes in NYC

For $50, you can get schooled on how to paint and take your creation home with you for DIY home decor. The fee covers everything you’ll need—except booze. Yes, you can BYOB to classes, and yes, you probably should.

Book Online

If you want to host a worthwhile party or office gathering, this is the place to do it. You can book a private session and celebrate in style—whether that style is impressionism or Dadaism is up to you.

Book Online

This studio is affiliated with Trestle Gallery, an exhibition space that also provides figure drawing sessions, critiques, screenings, performance art events and technique-focused art classes.

If you're looking for a no-bullshit painting class to take, Lower East Side art studio Dirty Hands offers the real deal: Pro artists teach the workshops, the materials are high-quality, and cool, contemporary techniques are emphasized. As its site states: “All levels are welcome, and the only thing you’re not going to do is paint a fucking sunset.” Be sure to try the Tape Shit course, in which you’ll learn to make perfect straight lines using tape and matte medium gel, just like bona fide art-school students. Then, you can proudly hang your final product on the wall.

This space offers many classes, including Brushless Watercolor so you can familiarize yourself with that medium without the constrictions of hand-to-brush dexterity. Remember how liberating finger painting was? That kid-style fun is exactly what you’ll rediscover here.

This art workshop/studio with locations on the Upper West Side and in Astoria, Queens offers “art that rock the soul,” and certainly provides a wide variety of avenues for both adults and kids to test that proposition. Want to learn how to paint a portrait of your beloved pet? There’s a class for that. Create a masterpiece from a selfie? Ditto. There are also course in creating abstract art with poured paint, painting wood signs as mementos and sipping wine while working at the easel. Kids can be signed up for after school sessions or painting parties. Dirty Hands is also available for corporates events, including mural team building.

The Paint Place in Astoria, Queens is located at 31-21 31st St, between Broadway and 31st Ave

Located in the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, the Art Lab offers four semesters of classes and workshops throughout the year—for every age and skill level.

If you want to get serious about watercolors, then the guys here can help. Michiyo offers weeklong courses at the New York Academy of Art for $425 if you’re ready to really commit to being a starving artist.

Book Online

This location offers both private and group lessons, so you can get into painting one-on-one or get down with some friends on a double date. From charcoal to oil paint, the artists here are experts in it all.

Book Online