Questions parents and students ask about the art classes

Children from age seven, teenagers and adults, including retirees in their sixties and seventies. Every age group, 7 to 11, 12 to 18 and adults over 18, can take group classes or individual classes.

At most six students, because the studio is small. Students in a group are of similar age, a few years apart.

Ages 7–11: classes last 45–60 minutes. A group class is $30, or $125 for five; an individual class is $40, or $175 for five.

Ages 12–18: classes last 75 minutes. A group class is $35, or $150 for five; an individual class is $40, or $175 for five.

Adults, over 18: classes last 90 minutes. A group class is $40, or $175 for five; an individual class is $45, or $200 for five.

A painting master class is $70 per person and lasts 120 minutes, with all materials included. Prices are in Canadian dollars with no tax added.

Children in a formed group have often studied together for six months or more. In that case Elena Ant suggests starting with individual classes: the child gets used to her as a teacher, learns to concentrate, and loses the nervousness and self-criticism before working alongside the group.

With notice, the child can join the class live on Zoom from home. With at least a few days’ notice, a missed class is not charged. Notice on the last day or the day before is charged, and the class is offered on Zoom.

Lessons are usually recorded, so a child who was ill can watch the lesson later and repeat it at home.

Their own materials for group classes and individual classes. Classes use pencils, charcoal, gouache and oil paints, on paper, practice canvas, or stretched canvas for a final piece. Painting master classes include all materials.

In Elena Ant’s dedicated studio at 31 Parkside Cres, London, ON N6C 5M2.

In three stages, each about a third of the lesson. Elena Ant demonstrates each stage at her own easel; after each stage she checks every student’s work and points out what to correct. At the end, students step back a metre and a half to two metres to judge their work, and she comments on it, always with encouragement.

Elena Ant advises against early conclusions. Some children cannot yet hold a pencil or a brush properly but already show feeling and understanding of what they draw. The skill is trained like a sport, through repetition, until the hand does what the artist intends.

Years. Elena Ant compares it to training a surgeon, which takes seven to ten years: an artist also needs time to learn to draw, to see and to understand. She asks students to focus on the process, not to judge each result.

Yes. She teaches academic drawing to students preparing portfolios for art, design and animation programmes, and talks with them about the professions they could choose and about college admission.

Art portfolio preparation

No. Children learn to look closely, to judge their own work and to stick with something hard. An OECD review of arts-education research concluded that these skills and habits, not higher marks in other subjects, are the main reason to learn art.

Some students later think about a career in art or design, and Elena Ant talks with them about it.

The benefits of art for kids and teens

No. Adults take group classes or individual classes, from complete beginners who “like drawing but don’t know how” to retirees who want time in a calm, creative state.

Art classes for adults

Drawing something helps you remember it. In experiments at the University of Waterloo, older adults remembered words they had drawn better than words they had written out, and so did people with probable dementia.

Large studies also link artistic activities in middle and later life with a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment, which can come before dementia.

The benefits of drawing for adults and seniors

No. Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy delivered by trained art therapists. Elena Ant is an artist and art teacher, and her classes teach drawing and painting.

A two-hour painting class for people who have never held a brush, with all materials included. Elena Ant leads the class through one painting, step by step, and everyone leaves with a finished canvas. It costs $70 per person.

Master classes are held at her studio, for at most six adults and teenagers, on a date arranged on request.

Painting master classes

Yes. She leads two-hour painting master classes for groups of 10 to 40, at the company’s venue or one she arranges, for $70 per person with all materials included. No one needs painting experience.

Team-building painting classes