Sunday nights, 5:00 to 6:30 pm (90-minute session)
Begins Sunday, November 22
Join the vibrant creative community at Artaluma.
Bring a painting you're working on, a craft project you've been dying to use a glue gun with, or get inspired by Elizabeth's craft project for the day, and/or have her coaching consultation on a project you're working on.
Immerse yourself in creative practice and play at Artaluma.
Wednesdays, December 2 to December 16, 5:30–7:30 PM
$110.00 for the 3-class series
Sunday nights, 5:00 to 6:30 PM (90-minute session), beginning Sunday, November 22
The eight-class card works out to $15.00 a session and can be used over a 3-month period.
Wednesdays and Fridays, 9–10 AM
Tuesdays, 8:30–9:30 AM
Workshops and series that wrapped recently — let us know if you’d like to see them come back.
Wednesday nights meet five times.
Move beyond the color wheel in this joyful, five-week exploration designed to get you excited and inspired by color. Using a full range of art materials—including colored pencils, watercolor, pastels, acrylic paint, collage, and even fabric—we’ll learn how color creates energy, movement, rhythm, contrast, and emotion.
Each week offers a different creative entry point: colorful shapes and abstraction groovy 1960s and ’70s color rhythmic patterns and repeated forms unexpected expressive color
You’ll explore complementary colors, neighboring colors, and surprising combinations—and learn what makes a palette harmonize, vibrate, or pop.
Inspired by artists and art traditions from around the world, we’ll experiment with shape, pattern, layering, masking, collage, and mixed media.
Every class results in something visually satisfying—even if you have very little drawing or art experience. You’ll leave the class with color studies, experience playing with a variety of art materials, your own personal color palette, and fresh ideas to carry into your art.
Through the Great Artists’ Footsteps framework, we’ll dive into their stories, what shaped them, how they saw the world, and how they made their art—then explore their ideas through engaging, hands-on art activities.
Learn how and why these artists are connected to these profound ideas about life - Michelangelo: The human body could express the soul. Marc Chagall: Imagination could reveal a deeper truth. Pablo Picasso: There is never only one way to see. Mary Cassatt: Close attention could make everyday life monumental. Through fascinating stories, close looking, conversation, and hands-on workshops, we’ll discover what made each artist’s work revolutionary—and experiment with their ideas in art of our own.
Four artists. 6 classes. Four genius ways of making art. New possibilities for your own creativity.
McEvoy Ranch · March 21 at 3 pm
Translate the organic shapes of flowers, foliage, and foraged elements into stunning works of art using paint and ink — under the expert guidance of Elizabeth McKoy. All materials provided.
4-Week Series · 2 hours each · Beginner & Intermediate
Build confidence while learning the essential skills that make your paintings stronger — color, value, and composition. Each session includes playful exercises plus a painting project at the end of each night.
This curriculum offers a hands-on exploration of the techniques, ideas, and creative lives of influential artists. Working in their footsteps, participants connect art history to their own practice through direct making—moving from observation into experience.
In this exciting hands-on course, we’ll delve into the lives and studios of Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Faith Ringgold, Lee Krasner, and Ruth Asawa—five extraordinary women who transformed the history of art through courage, innovation, and unmistakable personal vision.
We’ll play and explore, hands-on, how each artist used techniques and signature styles such as color, composition, scale, pattern, storytelling, and symbolism to create work that will inspire your own creations.
This is not an art-skill class—it’s a hands-on art history workshop series.
You’ll quickly discover why these artists continue to inspire artists around the world.
Over the series you’ll experiment with:
This series isn’t about copying these artists’ work—it’s about discovering the creative principles behind them and using those ideas to inspire and strengthen your own artistic voice.
Expect inspiring stories, fascinating art history, lively discussion, bite-size exercises, and short projects every class session.
Perfect for everyone who is creatively curious and ready to discover new ways of seeing, making, and expressing themselves.
For new + continuing students
Weekly art classes for adults in downtown Petaluma — a warm, encouraging studio where first-timers and longtime makers work side by side.
Browse by medium: painting, drawing, watercolor. New to art? Start with beginner-friendly classes.
One of the things I love most about teaching visual art is that there is always more to discover.
You don’t learn drawing, check it off the list, and move on to painting. The skills keep circling back, connecting, and deepening as you grow.
The more you learn about drawing, the more it can inform your painting—and vice versa.
Throughout the six weeks, I weave together drawing skills—such as line, shape, shadow, perspective, and how to create a three-dimensional form—with painting skills like color mixing, value, brushwork, composition, and working with acrylic paint.
I begin each class by demonstrating a technique, and then we apply what we’ve learned through one or more short, fun, and easy exercises to practice and integrate the learning.
I then offer a prompt or suggestions for the painting project, but everyone is always free to paint and express whatever and however they want. I adore being available to answer questions and to coach and facilitate exploration. In this way, I can individualize each student’s process.
At the end of each class, we turn to a key part of the learning: reflection, not critique.
Reflection is part of the spiral, too. We don’t begin by asking, What’s wrong with my work?
We start by looking carefully at what is working.
Then you decide what, if anything, you’re curious about improving:
The group learns exponentially from watching each other learn, ask questions, and bravely work on growing as artists.
Everyone learns and grows more than they thought possible.
New class dates, workshops, and occasional notes from the studio, sent by email.
