My lifelong dream was to learn from the masters and only when I registered with ARA was that dream…read morefully realized. I am now approaching portraiture with fearless enthusiasm as I learned from the best.

Hands down, the BEST art school in Toronto, if not Canada…read more The school is founded on the simple belief that everyone can draw because it is a craft, a technical skill, that can be learned, like measuring with a ruler. The reality is that this is true, anyone can learn to draw and it's that simple. No bells. No Whistles. Aside from the fact that you will learn to draw beautiful realist pieces, this school is run by genuine artists with decades of experience and real heart. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, with flexible hours to accommodate working professionals and students. You will begin with Bargue drawings. Once you have completed this portion of your studies (it could take 1-2 years depending on your skill and time) you will move into oil painting. Also, there are weekly life drawing classes utilizing charcoal. If I could go back in time, I think I would skip any consideration of a fine art degree or enrollment at a school like OCAD, because you can easily graduate from these programs in four years and still be unable to draw. But at the ARA, if you have time, patience and passion, you will learn to draw, no matter who you are.

Best art school! My daughter loves it. Nice environment and convenience location, professional…read moreteacher. We will continue to study here

Instructors are hit or miss. Some are much better than others. Office staff is rude and location is…read moredifficult to reach with all the construction on Eglinton. Virtual art classes not worthwhile

A "real art" school with experienced and qualified instructors. For adults and children…read more Experienced or not. Various techniques and media used. Day time and evening adult classes (open studio time and classes available). Kids classes available after school and saturdays. Summer Art Immersion Day Camps for kids available. Full and half day options. each week explores a different theme from impressionists, abstracts, cubism, renaissance, sculptures and more. For kids 4-8 and 9-13 yrs old. I have art experience and go weekly for open studio as well as classes. My two sons also go! my 11 yr old goes there for printmaking. my 6 year old is there for mixed media. both boys love the instruction...more than what they would learn about art from their regular school. love it!!!

From the owner: Our mission is to engage our students with the world around them using eye, mind and hand. In our…read moretechnologically-driven society it is increasingly important to pause and reconnect with the material world. There is a fundamental drive in all of us to create. Young children naturally express what they see, think and feel through their artwork. Often, this natural process becomes inhibited as they grow up. At Freehand, we are committed to nurturing creativity in young children and re-igniting it in everyone else. We provide a focused and informed approach to art instruction which allows students to discover the expressive possibilities of new materials and techniques. All of our instructors hold degrees in fine arts and/or education and are working artists.

I really appreciate this home-grown, family owned business. Tanyss and Harv are lifelong artists…read morewho share an open and welcoming environment where students can learn the foundational skills necessary to prepare for more ambitious projects.

The "Painting program " is a big scam …read more They dangle a carrot on a stick saying you will be painting...but the website misrepresents what it's really about. 1) you don't paint in the beginning of the program but do endlessly tedious Bargue drawings ( two drawings of very ugly Roman statues, no less) over a two month period. If you enjoy a exceedingly tedious exercises like measuring an outline of a head of a statue for 16 hours + and getting it off by half a mm and being corrected and having to redo this over and over - well power to you. It's not what I signed up for. That is under "Drawing program not painting" . The worst part is my main teacher clearly had Aspergers...I have no problem with people with Aspergers, ( my cousin has it but he's the same) -but when it gets in the way of teaching and you are stubbornly looking for errors for fifteen minutes, and ignoring the student requests to "please can we just move on to the next exercise already" or could you get a ruler and just measure it ? ( after a SIXTEEN HOUR outline and counting) ...I have a problem. 2) The next part of the program is you spend about a month or two on Colour, hue and chroma...all this flowery language on their website- but what it really is - is you basically just sit at a table- and just replicate paint chips. in every hue, shade imaginable- of a colour. You will do this for a month or two. If that's your thing , be my guest... Never mind that you could be spending your time honing technique and learning to paint actual THINGS as well as learning about colour mixing as you paint as many schools do.. or get taught theory or something...no instead they give you this very lazy assignment of making paint chips. And of course you will be endlessly corrected about how off you were by half a drop of white etc..etc.. You can just buy book on paint hues and quiz yourself ...if you want an excellent but pricey one - get Munsell book of Colour ) rather than waste 1- 2 months of your time on such an insipid exercise...it's still cheaper and not so utterly time wasting. 3) You don't even get to actually "paint" in the program for OVER A YEAR . It can take years to "graduate" because of how slow the program goes, and you hardly get anything done . Website assures many body of works will be produced- pff ! Hardly. When I asked the teacher ( Tannys ) about this, she told me: " Painting is easy, you can paint at home." Right ! 2) They don't even use oil paint for when you do paint, which they don't mention, it's acrylics. 3) The teachers are overall "surface nice" at first, but most are a strange, cold and unwelcoming introverted, bunch, and Tannys is a downright pretentious snob who studied in France and Italy ( but her actual skills as an artist are questionable if you look at her instagram ). When I started asking too many questions ..she called me rude about three times in front of the entire class, and "WHO was I to interview/undermine the teachers like this? " it was a deliberate shaming, as she wanted to get rid of me as I was posing "a problem" with my questions. Never mind that it's illegal to misrepresent a program online and not deliver what you are told you are going to get ... 4) It's deathly boring because you have to spend a lot of your time there, waiting around on teachers.. They gab mindlessly to students for half an hour or more sometimes ( things that could be said in five minutes if they were at all articulate..) which only adds to the tedium of the already very tedious exercises.. You show up , and they don't even bother with ensuring that students are able to start on tbe 6) After I was warned the first day by another miserable student about the program - I sent an email to Jeff and expressed my concern about how slow this program was going.. I was assured it would move faster, but he knew very well this was not true as if anything the program went ALOT slower...and he only said this in order to get me to pay the money the next day. So he blatantly lied to get my money. In then end I was promised a full refund as I pointed out they were misrepresenting what was being sold..( in other words, it's illegal.). I only heard back weeks later, and they ripped me off about 600 dollars because "oh that money you can't get back that part - it's "not refundable" ! If you want to learn to paint, another school I was going to go to was VR school of Art, where you do actually paint right away and with oils...and things you like as well... but I'm so over it now...:(

This is a very warm and inviting neighborhood school for kids - and adults - to attend art classes…read more It's particularly beautiful in fall. The welcoming staff and teachers appear to be caring and competent. It is well organized and the enrollment / registration staff are responsive and attentive. For children's classes, all materials and supplies are included. My child really seems to enjoy the class and the teachers! For adults, materials lists are provided. There are classes in photography, painting, drawing, watercolor, etc for both beginners and more advanced students. So far a very positive experience. Highly recommended!

Been attending classes and workshops for 2 years, and I somewhat recommend this facility to anyone…read morewho is interested in arts or wants new hobbies to pursue. This isn't a professional school where respected people in the fields teach you so you can become artists. It's more like some skilled people give you knowledge on techniques to help you discover your new hobby. This isn't just school where they offer painting lessons but also available are photography, stage performance arts and so on and such. All instructors I've had are inspiring, caring and kind albeit their fake encouragements and rushed attitudes. They make sure everything is understood and help you develop artistic senses, and find areas where you can improve. What came off as disappointment is that they were not willing to engage in interesting discussions because they have to stick to schedule. Classes are very small but it is perfect for people who have school or work during daytime, and enrolment fees won't break the bank, so might as well take it lightly instead of a serious school where you learn to become artists. I took various painting and drawing classes and photography lessons, with which I am happy as I became knowledgable with those activities but there were some cancelled classes time to time. And sometimes classes are boring as not many people are enrolled and instructors would end early where he would not know what to do with remaining time.

New location: 24 Ryerson, near Bathurst and Queen west…read more Calm newly renovated space, central location and gentle professional artists as teachers.

Now taking a second watercolour class with Brian Hoxha at Toronto School of Art and am so impressed…read morewith the level of teaching and instruction! I'm now in love with watercolour and producing pieces that I'm proud of.

I have no idea about the quality of the education provided within the walls of this art…read moreinstitution. However, if Will Alsop's brilliant design for this gravity-defying skybound rectangle on pencils inspires its students as much as it moves folks like me who pass by, then OCAD is probably turning out geniuses. With Frank Gehry's fantastic new design for the Art Gallery of Ontario just steps away, these blocks are the epicenter of great architecture in Toronto.

My rating is for the quality of EDUCATION offered at OCAD. The average rating discussed overall for…read morethis school is highly elevated by what seems to be a fascination for its ARCHITECTURE, which should not even be a consideration. The original OCA had a well deserved reputation as a art school before 1970, when students actually gained valuable skills and professors believed they should pay attention to their students and offer real training. Sadly at that time, the traditional concept was abandoned in favour of embracing a "free school" format. Teachers, except for a very few, just stopped teaching and became "advisors." If students asked for more, they were told they wanted to be spoon-fed. But this is NOT a graduate school - the students coming into first year do need instruction. There is a serious disconnect that ultimately short-changes the young people who enrol, believing the somehow sustained reputation that the school boasts but does not support.

Excellent teachers and student teachers. They really helped guide me in the right direction with my…read moreportfolio and the teachers were always willing to help. Great teaching style, they would usually give me a project prompt to explore and would let me brainstorm on my own and when I needed help or some extra guidance or even just someone to bounce ideas off of, they were always there to help. Highly recommend.

This school can be different for everyone's need but it was truly not for me. For those who have…read morespecial learning needs and lack creativity, closer guidance is needed. The school will not cater to those needs and for that reason, I strongly do not recommend this school due to my experience. As a former Toronto Art student, l still lack creativity, especially drawing by hand, even after leaving the school. I realize that most portfolio schools run on a business system and would take your money. A good example would be this school. As an unhappy client leaving the school, I am now with an art teacher who is preparing me for next year's submission (2021), as I was not able to beat the challenge. I felt mentally unconfident and physically exhausted from being at this school. I was recommended by both the directors to attend the school daily in order to improve my artistic and creativity skill set. However, as my experiences were settling in, the classes did not help me improve despite already increasing the classes prior for the submission. I spent more than a year with this art school believing they would guide me and ease the stress to prepare me for Ryerson's Architecture Science program in 2020. I was wrong. I thought this school would be the best fit for my and sister's needs since we really lack with drawing creativity. I found it was hard to absorb information by the art director, as his style of teaching was to show the person rather than explaining how the technique works. Sometimes I felt that I was forced to do art in a way that was not my style and asked to do something else but ended up being rejected due to the director's standards. As a result, I was making a portfolio for someone else instead of my own, but the purpose of me attending the school was not only to fix my drawing skills but to show a story of my own personal art pieces. I believe that a portfolio should contain one's own style and art of a storytelling book. In every portfolio made by an artist should tell the viewer who they are as a person, their identity, their style, and how they express their creativity to the audience. For me, I did not feel the atmosphere of my portfolio was portrayed that way. As for every portfolio class, I thought payment went towards you getting help, inspiration, and importantly, confidence. I left the school with doubts, but I have learned how to draw and paint essentially. I am merely missing the essential part of creativity, which I thought the school would have provided me. Overall, I felt my bad experience with Toronto Art outweighed the good. There was favoritism that played a role in the group classes for those who are more advanced, around the director of the school. It should be natural that instructors would pay more attention to those who are struggling, rather than helping those who are most likely to I wish I withdrew out of the class 5 months prior to the submission because now I wasted time and money while not getting what I want realistically. There were times where I was not able to attend some sessions due to conflicts with scheduling from personal events but I would tell director's wife in advance. I rather tell someone in advance than not show up and say nothing. I understand it is hard running on a portfolio business when a student is not able to attend the class but it is unprofessional for director's wife to sigh or give a signal of attitude. What I do not understand is that I was told not to ask for help frequently, as the wife's director said that it would scare and annoy the art assistants and they would be more likely to quit. I rarely asked for help and truly if I do ask for help, I try not to rely heavily on the assistants, as I am fully aware that I was unhappy when she told me since as I found that this was very unprofessional and rude to tell me this. I was not happy during times when I needed the director to help but he left early due to family or personal commitments. I do respect his private life but as someone who runs an art school, he should be more dedicated and passionate with his students, rather than leaving them with art assistants. From a client perspective, I am paying the school to get the help I need. I find that this school only runs on a money-grabbing system, rather than being passionate to help those who strive success. Nevertheless, I found this school is not best fit for me and will not come here again as I have not achieved my goal. I will not recommend this school to my friends who share similar difficulties as me. The school left a bad impression on me, resulting in a struggling mental state of confidence within art. From an unhappy client DO NOT GO TO THIS SCHOOL as I was threatened by the school after posting my google review. I was not only mentally but physically damaged by this message. I really find this school very unprofessional and rude especially to those who are not happy with their service.

Studio West is one of the best studios I've been to so far! Don't let the location through you off!…read moreOnce you get inside, you'll be working with many talented pro artists with a friendly personality. Studio West has many workshops and weekly courses. Varies between digital media, traditional, and life drawing and painting! I go weekly to life drawing/painting sessions where there's a nude model, and proper lighting. The space is big enough to fit 10 people I'd say. There's even free coffee and light snacks! Whether you're a hobbyist or a pro artist, I highly recommend it as an artist myself.

From the owner: Affordable arts education bases in Toronto offered by professionals in the industry.read more

We tried tots club, cooking class, and tots social here at CCSA. We love the care and attention…read morethey give to their kids to create stuff. Today in cooking class, we made pancakes and kid had a great time! With art, they teach us why they do certain methods what skill it teaches, like practicing dexterity or counting. Most of the kids in her class are 2-3 years old. We have been highly recommending CCSA, not just for toddlers, but also for adults and older kids!

From the owner: The Canadian Contemporary School of Art (CCSA) is an art school for all ages. The CCSA offers more…read morefine art classes, but architecture, animation, fashion design, and much more. CCSA provides a warm and welcoming environment for kids and adults to learn in.