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Get Creative with the Best Art Classes in Melbourne
Unleash your inner artist as you let the creativity flow and discover a new relaxing hobby with the best art classes in Melbourne.
The best art classes in Melbourne are as varied as the city itself, spanning glass lampworking, water marbling, jewellery making, floristry, life drawing, ceramics, resin art and tufting. You can shape molten glass at Metal Battle Studio in Brunswick, marble silk at In Aetheria in Kensington, make your own rings at blonde. in Fitzroy or work with flowers at Urban Antidote in Carlton. For anyone who’d rather look than make, Melbourne’s art galleries are never far away either.
What makes the city’s creative scene so good is the sheer specificity of it all. One night you’re drawing from a live model; the next you’re holding a tufting gun, repairing ceramics with kintsugi or pouring resin into a piece you’ll actually want to keep. Complete beginner or serial hobby collector, these are the Melbourne art classes worth clearing a few hours for.
Craft Cinema Night
Finally, a cinema where pulling out your crochet halfway through the movie is encouraged. Craft Cinema Night keeps the house lights gently dimmed so you can knit, stitch, sketch or work on whatever project currently lives in your tote while a cult favourite plays on the big screen. Recent Melbourne sessions have moved through The Parent Trap, Hannah Montana and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, with Freaky Friday and The Lizzie McGuire Movie up next. Come alone and there’s even a pre-film meet-up for fellow crafters. Very good news for anyone who struggles to keep their hands still for two hours.
Melbourne screenings rotate between cinemas including Lido, Sun Theatre, Classic, Cameo and Cinema Nova
Glass Lampworking at Metal Battle Studio
Brunswick has no shortage of places to make ceramics. Metal Battle Studio hands you a torch and glass rods instead. Its two-hour lampworking classes teach complete beginners to heat, shape, layer and colour molten glass, with separate sessions devoted to delicate glass flowers and rings. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching a rigid rod soften in the flame and slowly become something recognisable under your hands, especially when the finished piece is yours to keep.
Sitchu Tip: Classes are $280, all the technical guidance is handled in-studio, and extra practice time can be added if the flame has you hooked.
16 Beith Street, Brunswick
In Aetheria Water Marbling
Water marbling has the thrill of ink refusing to behave. At In Aetheria, designer Amanda Lo Bartolo floats colour across a water bath, shifts it into ripples and veins, then captures the pattern on fabric before it disappears for good. Her two-hour Kensington workshops are designed for beginners, with time to learn the technique before getting loose with colour and composition.
There are dedicated silk scarf sessions too, if you’d rather leave with something wearable. Wear clothes you don’t mind getting ink on; the rest is supplied.
Level 2, 75A Stubbs Street, Kensington
Ring Making at blonde.
Two hours on Brunswick Street, two rings made by your own hands. blonde. takes complete beginners through the foundations of jewellery making at its Fitzroy flagship, with experienced jewellers helping you design and make a pair of rings in sterling silver. Solid 9-carat yellow gold is available as an upgrade, and both pieces leave with you on the day. The studio has all the tools and none of the intimidating jeweller’s-bench energy, which makes this an especially good booking with a friend, partner or anyone whose jewellery box deserves something with a story attached.
344 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Life Drawing at Coates Community Arts
Life drawing doesn’t get much more Melbourne than heading up Collins Street on a weeknight with charcoal in hand. Coates Community Arts has been running untutored sessions for more than 18 years, with live models every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening and no prior drawing experience required. Your $22 covers the session and materials, so there’s no need to arrive carrying an easel under one arm. There’s no formal lesson or critique either: you turn up, look closely and draw.
Sitchu Tip: Book ahead through TryBooking or take your chances as a walk-in.
Suite 6, Level 4, 20 Collins Street, Melbourne
Spring Kenzan Arrangements at Lucy Loves Charlie
Forget the tightly packed bouquet. Lucy Loves Charlie is going sculptural for spring with a two-hour kenzan workshop upstairs at its new Fitzroy flower shop. Using a Japanese flower frog to hold each stem in place, you’ll work through balance, composition and placement with seasonal blooms, building a table arrangement that lets individual flowers have some breathing room. The $140 session on 26 September includes your flowers, vase and kenzan, and all three come home with you afterwards, so you can keep experimenting long after spring has moved on.
405 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Life Drawing With Lani
Artist Lani Mitchell has long made life drawing feel far more social than studious, hosting relaxed pop-ups around Melbourne where the human form takes centre stage and beginners are just as welcome as practiced hands. Her sessions have appeared everywhere from Hope St Radio to MPavilion and Fitzroy galleries, with materials typically supplied and the emphasis firmly on drawing without pressure. Dates move around, so this is one to follow rather than pencil permanently into the diary.
Follow Life Drawing With Lani on Instagram for future pop-ups.
Fitzroy Painting
Fitzroy Painting has been teaching Melburnians to paint since 2009, with practising artists leading classes in oils, watercolour, drawing and abstraction from its Brunswick Street studio. Beginners can ease in with four-week introductory courses, while one-day workshops cover everything from portraiture to abstract painting, and ongoing studio sessions give more confident hands room to develop their own work. Serious skills, good company and no expectation that you arrive knowing what you’re doing.
Studio 7, 244 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Honey Bones Studio
Honey Bones Studio has evolved beyond its gallery beginnings into a Brunswick creative hub where exhibitions, artist studios and hands-on making all share the same roof. The current workshop calendar is especially good for anyone with a half-finished sewing project or an op-shop find waiting for better ideas: Remake Sessions with Hey.Raco cover repair, upcycling and sewing skills, while recurring Open Sewing Sessions give you space, equipment and guidance to work on your own piece.
Sitchu Tip: Little Homey cafe next door handles the coffee between stitches.
46 Trafford Street, Brunswick
Fine & Wine with FinerRings
At FinerRings, jewellery-making comes with wine, good food and a very wearable souvenir. Fine & Wine classes in Fitzroy are capped at 12 people and designed for complete beginners, with current sessions spanning Staples, Pearls, Stamps, Delicate Details, Finer Favourites and a Master Class. Over two hours, you’ll make three pieces of jewellery, sip as you work and get a little VIP shopping time before class. Craft night, but make it polished.
246 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
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Shell Space
At Shell Space, artist Hilary Green turns sculpture and candle-making into something closer to an evening ritual. Monthly classes range from Candelabra by Candlelight and Spirit Vessel to hand-dipped intention candles and oracle figure sculpting, all shaped by Green’s tactile, otherworldly practice. Clay, wax, low light and just enough guidance make for a very good few hours.
8 McIver Street, Brunswick
Collage Classes at That Paper Joint
At That Paper Joint, scissors, old magazines and very good ideas take over a cosy Sydney Road studio. Max and Zoe’s three-hour Cut & Paste workshops use second-hand, recycled and donated materials, teaching playful collage techniques including their clever glue-free process, so nothing feels too precious or permanent. Friday nights are BYO and a little more social; weekends are slower, coffee-fuelled and ideal for disappearing into paper scraps for an afternoon. Once you’ve done the guided class, you can even come back for self-led studio sessions.
544 Sydney Road, Brunswick
The Art Room
The Art Room is one of Footscray’s most established places to get truly stuck into making and creating. The artist-led school runs everything from foundation drawing and painting to ceramics, printmaking and casual life drawing, alongside one-off workshops that dig into colour, abstraction and studio practice. Beginners are very welcome, but there is enough depth here for people who want to keep coming back and build a practice rather than simply book a one-off class.
138 Cowper Street, Footscray
Work-Shop Melbourne
Work-Shop Melbourne is where you go when one creative hobby simply won’t do. The Collingwood studio keeps an ever-changing calendar of classes in rotation, from linocut and Japanese woodblock printing to modern kintsugi, silver-ring making, bookbinding, tarot and visible mending. Most are designed to welcome beginners, so you can arrive curious and leave with a new skill, a handmade something and, quite possibly, your next fixation.
Check out the full lineup of classes here
136A Cromwell Street, Collingwood
Tuft & Touch Tufting Studio
If your Pinterest boards have been quietly filling with tufted mirrors and wavy little rugs, Tuft & Touch is where to make one for real. The North Melbourne studio is geared towards first-timers, with hands-on classes that teach you how to use a tufting gun before letting you loose on your own design. Most people walk in having never tufted before; a few hours later, there’s a rug, cushion or wall piece with their name on it.
Bookings are essential, groups stay small and the studio handles the finishing once you’re done, so all that’s left is deciding what deserves immortalising in yarn.
476A Victoria Street, North Melbourne
Pinot & Picasso
At Pinot & Picasso, painting comes with wine, snacks and a very good playlist. Bring your own bottle and a few favourite people, then follow an artist through the piece step by step until you leave with a canvas of your own. Sessions run for around two hours, with plenty of time to pour another glass, compare questionable brushwork and gradually realise you may actually be quite good at this. It works equally well for date night, birthdays, hens parties or a team outing that doesn’t involve another round of mini golf.
CBD, South Yarra, Warrandyte, Thornbury and more
‘Paint Your Own Pottery’ at Robert Gordon
A trip to Robert Gordon gets even better when you’re the one holding the paintbrush. Inside the Pakenham studio, choose a bisque piece from shelves of mugs, bowls, dinnerware and vases, then spend an hour making it entirely your own. The shapes change with the seasons, while brushes, palettes and everything else you need are waiting on the table. Once you’re finished, Robert Gordon takes care of the glazing and firing, with your handiwork ready to collect a few weeks later. Make an afternoon of it with lunch or coffee at Nancy Eatery, then have a dangerous little browse through the factory outlet before heading home.
Book a session here
114 Mulcahy Road, Pakenham
Art Tree Creations
If resin art has always looked slightly intimidating from the other side of Instagram, Art Tree Creations makes a very hands-on case for trying it yourself. The Bayswater studio runs small-group workshops in resin wall art, timber-and-resin serving boards, alcohol inks, jewellery and Jesmonite, with all the materials supplied and plenty of guidance through the messier technical bits. Their four-hour Resin Art Masterclass ends with your own 50cm artwork, which feels like a pretty decent return on an afternoon in the outer east.
1/15 Newcastle Road, Bayswater
Urban Antidote’s Floral Workshops
Flowers get the full art-school treatment at Urban Antidote, Anastasia Botica’s bold Melbourne floral studio. From its new Carlton home, workshops move well beyond arranging a supermarket bunch: you might learn to build a sculptural bouquet, work colour through a vase arrangement or master the spiral technique behind a seriously good hand-tied bunch. Sessions are beginner-friendly, with all the flowers, tools and guidance supplied, while private groups can choose from flower crowns, bouquets or vase arrangements. You’ll leave with new skills, a very photogenic armful of blooms and a sudden urge to rethink every vase in your house.
110 Elgin Street, Carlton
Frequently Asked Questions
Several Melbourne studios are built specifically for people who have never taken a class before. Coates Community Arts runs untutored life drawing sessions from $22 with no experience required, blonde. teaches jewellery-making basics over a two-hour ring-making class in Fitzroy, and Robert Gordon’s paint-your-own-pottery sessions in Pakenham need no prior skill at all. Pinot & Picasso is also a reliable beginner option, since an artist guides the group through the painting step by step.
Plenty of Melbourne studios run single-session workshops rather than multi-week courses. Metal Battle Studio’s glass lampworking classes, In Aetheria’s water marbling workshops, and FinerRings’ Fine & Wine jewellery sessions are all designed as standalone two-hour experiences, so there’s no ongoing commitment required.
Pinot & Picasso is a popular choice for dates, birthdays and group outings, since it’s a BYO painting session with a relaxed, social pace. FinerRings’ Fine & Wine jewellery classes and Lucy Loves Charlie’s spring kenzan flower workshop are also well suited to a small group wanting to make something together over a couple of hours.
Craft Cinema Night is one of the more affordable options, since attendees bring their own project and simply pay for a cinema ticket while a film plays. Coates Community Arts is also budget-friendly at $22 per session including materials, making it one of the cheapest structured art classes on this list.
Robert Gordon’s Pakenham studio runs paint-your-own-pottery sessions where you choose a piece and decorate it yourself, with glazing and firing handled afterwards. For wheel-thrown pottery specifically, Melbourne has a separate dedicated guide to pottery classes worth checking for studios that teach the wheel itself.
Have you loved our guide to the best art classes in Melbourne and feel inspired to try more creative projects and activities? Check out the best pottery classes in Melbourne.
