ACX - KIDS - Home

Featured Classes

Drawing, Painting and Making

Discover drawing, painting, sculpture and everything in between. Learn essential foundation skills of visual art and design and then apply them through the process of making. Students will use construction, drawing and painting to create unique 2D and 3D multimedia works.

Photography

Examine the vast possibilities of making a photographic image. Learn about imagery and composition, basic printing processes and how to print from your own negatives in a traditional black-and-white darkroom. There will be cameras available for use in the class, but you are encouraged to use your own 35mm film camera (digital cameras are not appropriate). All film and printing supplies are included. Classes will be held in the darkroom lab.

Architecture Inside Out

Investigate personal and shared space, especially in relation to yourself and your friends. Use cardboard, glue and paint to construct one project that reflects your world from three different perspectives: the near (things we touch), the middle (the spaces that hold us) and the far (the settings we live in).

Fun with Fashion

Take your interest in fashion to a different level. Learn how to draw fashion croquis (elongated quick sketches), have fun creating 3D projects like paper dresses, and explore accessory design. Learn basic fashion vocabulary and how to present your work.

Drawing the Clothed Figure

Drawing the human figure is important training for all artists. Learn about form, proportion, shape, composition, the human skeleton and simplification. To inspire your drawing, we will study art created by everybody from the Old Masters to contemporary artists.

Animal Sculpture

Come with an animal in mind—your pet, a favorite at the zoo or a completely made-up creature—and transform it into an original papier-mâché sculpture. Don’t worry about the animal's size. In fact, the bigger the better. Sculpt it, paint it, take it home.

Student Gallery

Featured Story

ACX Kids class Inventors’ Workshop teaches students problem solving

Image of a student's approach to a first aid kit

Photo of Nas Oh, (BFA 2011 Illustration)

Think of three ways to brush your teeth without using your hands, sketch those ideas, and then turn them into products.

That’s a prompt alumnus Nas Oh (BFA 11 Illustration), a production designer for movies, music videos and commercials, uses in his ACX Kids class Inventors’ Workshop. In the class, students learn how to develop concepts, boost their visualization skills and create products.

“Creativity doesn't just help designers and artists,” he says. “Once you know how to brainstorm and creatively solve problems, you can use those skills in your everyday life.”

With Fall 2020 ACX Kids classes being taught remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Oh has focused Inventors’ Workshop on industrial drawing techniques and problem solving, using sketchbooks, a ruler and Prismacolor pencils. Students are shown video and photo examples of existing products and are asked to critique them as both a designer and a consumer. Then, they redesign those products according to what they think they could improve.

One past student who liked cooking wanted to forgo using two different spatulas (a soft spatula and a hard spatula) when cooking fried eggs and meat. To solve this problem, he created a jointed spatula, whose stiffness could be mechanically adjusted from loose to tight using “+” and “–” buttons. “It was a very cute idea based on his personal experience,” says Oh.

Oh also prepares his students for working in the real world by teaching them how to speak with future clients and negotiate peaceful resolutions.

“Working on different types of productions, there are always issues that you never think will be a problem,” Oh points out. “You must figure out how to solve the problem you’re facing within a very short period of time. In my mind, there’s always a way for everything.”

Important Dates

09.28 -10.25

Registration period

10.01

Scholarship deadline #1

10.15

Scholarship deadline #2

10.25

Sunday classes begin

10.25

Late registration, 11:30am – 1pm

11.29

Holiday, no classes

12.13

Sunday classes end

01.27 -02.21

Spring 2020 registration begins