Kids arts & crafts courses

Join Hayley Steedman at the Wurkshop studio as she guides you through the process of block printing a duvet cover with your own design. You will learn how to turn your design into a repeat pattern and carve it from Lino before printing it onto a white, organic cotton duvet cover. You will leave with a your duvet set, complete with matching cushion covers and your carved Lino block - armed with the knowledge you need to carry on printing at home (or back at the studio by arrangement), should you wish to! It’s time to personalise your bedroom!

This course includes a washed, organic cotton single duvet set* and matching cushion covers.

*This can be substituted for a double duvet set if required but this will incur a small surcharge to cover the extra material costs.

Learn how to make a whole lamp from scratch!

We mean it: you'll be carving the base with chisels and mallets, painting a design, wiring (with some professional help) and then finally painting and constructing your lamp shade.

There's nothing like the feeling of plugging in your finished piece at the end of the day, twisting in the bulb, and flicking on the switch! For this course we have chosen spray graffiti as our inspiration, so you will also learn how to fade, spray, dribble, splatter and mist - all of which will leave you with a bedside lamp that is out of this world!

All Materials included (lamp base materials, high quality fabric electric cord, brass fixtures, lamp shade rings and bulb).

As we will be using spray cans we recommend not wearing your best outfit (including shoes) as the acrylic paint in the sprays is very tough to remove. They will be wearing our work-coats but…

Ever fancied yourself as Henry VIII? Or perhaps you’d like to see your mother as the Queen, your father as Prince William or sister as Anne Boleyn? Now is your chance...

Artist Hayley Steedman, will teach you how to draw a portrait of a friend or someone in your family as a member of the Royal family. Using charcoal and pastels, Hayley will take you through the process of gridding your work with careful attention spent on the drawing of facial features and the style of royal portraits.

Then, to finish it all off, you can return in the afternoon to frame your piece in a gilt frame, fit for royalty. You will learn how to put your frame together from scratch and how to gild the wood yourself, using gold leaf, ready for the National Gallery or your own Palace perhaps?

Inspired by Basquiat’s paintings, we’ll use paint and oil pastel to create our own paintings, which will use the bold colours and graffiti motifs Basquiat is famous for.

Jean-Michel Basquiat rose to fame in the late 1970s through his street art in Lower East Side Manhattan. By the 1980s his work was being displayed in top galleries across the world. In 2017, he set a record for the most expensive painting by an American artist when a piece of his art sold for $110.5 million. His work was highly influenced to the early hip-hop scene in New York, as well as bebop, no wave, and jazz, so this class will be playing an appropriate soundtrack to inspire our budding artists.

If you have enjoyed our graffiti classes and would like to try something a little different... this is a great cross over class, seeing graffiti step into the realm of fine art.

Join Artist Beatrice Boyle as she introduces you to the work of the painter, Alex Katz. You will learn to draw and paint in the same style, with a finished portrait at the end of the session. Alex Katz is an exciting figurative painter, still working in his 90s! His bold style is great to learn from. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to learn with Beatrice, who will take you through the process of gridding your image, preliminary drawing and then painting your piece!

David Hockney is one of the most recognised and famous artists of our time. His works span over sixty years and are always striking and exciting. In this course, we will be concentrating on his work of the 1990s - landscapes. 

Versatile, vast and vibrant, Hockney’s paintings of views over the Yorkshire Dales or the Grand Canyon play with line, colour and space. Students will do just that, as well as experiment with Hockney’s reverse perspective technique. 

This is a course that will inspire and teach children about this remarkable artist. They will recreate his works in charcoal, acrylic paint and oil pastel to create impressive landscapes of their own. It’s an art history and highly skilled painting course rolled into one. 

Beatrice Boyle is a practising contemporary artist who has taught children and adults for over 15 years. Her classes are fun and relaxed, teaching advanced painting and drawing skills and inspiring people to experiment and bring their own creativity to their work.

Wurkshop goes to the woods in this new course where you will learn to whittle your own wooden spoon. 

Come and split, carve, axe, cut and scoop to make one of the first things humans ever created: the spoon. The oldest spoon recorded is from Ancient Egypt, dated from 10,000BC. The word ‘spoon’ comes from the Old English meaning ‘chip of wood’. They may be something everyone has in their kitchens, but carving your own is a real wonder.

Coppicer Suzy Williams looks after woodland in Berkshire and will teach students about different types of wood and how to source your own to carve. 

Come and learn a new hobby you can take to your very own campfire - whittle the hours away with this highly tactile, satisfying craft. 

Because of the hand strength required to carve, children need to be aged 7 upwards. We will be using the proper tools so non-cut gloves will be provided. 

Drawing and painting outside is an experience in itself as life is going on right in front of you and it’s your job to capture it. This class will draw the bustling, ever changing scene of the classic parade of independent shops in central Barnes.

Students will explore a range of different mark making techniques, and use materials including pencil, pens in various widths, charcoal and watercolour. Join artists like Lowry and Hopper, who have captured town and city life.

Contemporary artist Beatrice Boyle can tailor her teaching to any standard and age in this course. It’s brilliant for those who are new to drawing as well as more experienced artists.
This course is outdoors and, though we have a relatively large gazebo for shelter if needed, students should make sure to wear appropriate clothes and footwear according to the weather conditions! Trust us though, being an outdoor artist in the rain is even more of an adventure.

These clay houses make amazing low-level lamps and nightlights or an incredible atmospheric addition to any bedroom (pieces are designed to be lit with tea-lights from inside).

Toby will teach you hand-building with slabs to make the walls and roof of your house, castle, mansion or bungalow. You will learn tips to recreate a variety of wall textures, such as brick, stone and pebbledash! Hand make tiles for the roof, and cut holes for windows and doors. We will look at a number of architectural styles from gothic to Bauhaus and you will get the chance to return a week after the build to glaze your fired pieces using a range of underglazes, stains and lustres.

This is a wonderful course to learn new skills and build a piece of real beauty: build a model of your own home, a favourite place or create a fantasy palace - the choice is yours!

For these sessions, we’ve teamed up with Apparent Estate Agents on Barnes High Street who will be choosing their favourite houses created for the ‘Barnes plinth’. Worry no longer about your art ending up on the Fourth Plinth, Apparent’s shop window is where it’s at this year. The winning pieces will be displayed after the course in a special exhibition, to awe everyone passing.

Half way through his career, the struggling Belgian artist Rene Magritte secretly produced fake Picassos and counterfeit bank notes to survive. But in quite a career reversal, he is now recognised as one of the leading members of the surrealist movement (for his own pieces, not his fakes!)

In this drawing and painting course, students will play with charcoal and acrylic to learn about surrealism. Come and challenge the world like Magritte did - where men are the raindrops falling from the sky or people’s faces are actually apples. What will your new reality of the world be?

Contemporary artist Beatrice Boyle will guide students through this art history and skilled painting session. All you need is imagination and to open your eyes to what the world could look like.

Wurkshop has yet again teamed up with local tuition provider Torchlight to combine our respective areas of expertise! Taking advantage of Torchlight director Toby's extensive experience teaching creative writing and Michael O'Mahoney's experience with art tuition to bring you … ‘Write, Illustrate, Publish'.

This summer on these two day courses, students will learn key creative writing skills with a focus on unreliable narrators, dynamic openings and new vocabulary. In combination with this, they will also illustrate their stories with Michael's help, working with collage, print and watercolour ink drawings before learning to bind their book at the end. A truly educational and creative course!

Book early to avoid disappointment!

We all know that feeling of pure joy when you have a fresh set of stationery - clean and crisp - for the start of term. It’s the smells of graphite, wood and canvas and the encapsulates the feelings of adventure as you embark on new subjects, discoveries, and friends at school.

In this new course, students will learn the art of flottage - ink in large trays of water - to create stunning patterned boarder papers which will be the envy of any classroom. You can use them for writing paper, to decorate your textbooks, or anything that takes your imagination.

These flottage papers will also be made into a new set of matching pens and pencils.

Rounding it all off, they will create their own personalised canvas pencil case learning new printing and dying methods.

Skip buying a plastic pencil case or the standard pens this term, this Wurkshop course will produce aesthetically pleasing, joyous stationary that will last for longer than the school term.

Basketry is highly skilled and widely believed to be amongst the oldest crafts in the world. Come and learn how to weave willow whilst you create a life size rabbit sculpture for your room or garden.

It will be weaving in a crazy, random way to create bunnies of real character - make them as cheeky or as charming as you like!

Use them to hang jewellery on, as a companion for your garden gnomes or as a wonderful piece of decorative homeware.

Hubble bubble! In this new course, we will mix, squelch, explode and boil.

Many aspiring perfumers, chemists or chefs started with the art of the potion. But this course is not childhood potions with mud or grass. We will create things you can use at home, or gift to others to enjoy. Come and create some magic, arouse your senses and keep the secrets you learn to yourselves.

Graffiti artist Danny, from Zinc Styles, returns to Wurkshop making graffiti art on canvas. Danny will introduce students to various styles of graffiti and street art, teaching them how to achieve various effects using spray paints outside on board.

At the end of the class, students will have a finished canvas to take home with them. This course is suitable for students who have attended previous graffiti courses at Wurkshop as well as complete beginners.

This is always a popular course, so we have made sure to try to offer multiple dates over the summer. Come and see us on Sunday 5th September

As we will be using spray cans we recommend not wearing your best outfit (including shoes) as the acrylic paint in the sprays is very tough to remove. They will be wearing our work-coats but…