Art Classes in Honolulu

Honolulu's art teaching is concentrated in three places. The Honolulu Museum of Art School on Victoria Street runs the deepest programme: six drawing courses and four painting courses in a typical fall term, ten weeks each, at $280–$325 — Drawing: Basics and Beyond, Figure Drawing, From Draped to Dressed, Watercolor, Non-Traditional Oil Painting, Landscape en Plein Air. Terms start in October and again in January, and the popular sections fill.

Fishcake in Kakaʻako is where you go for a single evening: Everyday Watercolor ($100), Cat in Watercolor ($45), Birds in Brushstrokes ($35), and a rotating “study a master” session ($100). Nothing to commit to beyond the one date. And Zwick Academy of Fine Art runs classical atelier-style workshops — it publishes dates but not prices, so we list the workshop and tell you to ask.

The honest advice for a beginner: HoMA's single-evening “The Hand Sees” drawing workshop ($37) exists precisely so you can find out whether you want the ten-week course. Do that first.

Cheapest class

Fishcake “Birds in Brushstrokes” ($35) and HoMA’s one-evening “The Hand Sees” ($37)

Most complete programme

HoMA Art School — 38 courses in the fall term across drawing, painting, ceramics, fiber and kids’

Figure drawing

HoMA runs Figure Drawing (live model) and From Draped to Dressed (clothed figure) on Fridays, $316–$325 a term

Outdoors

HoMA’s Landscape en Plein Air is the only outdoor painting course we track ($318, Fridays)

A class appears here only after someone on our side has opened the studio's own listing and read the price, the dates and the level. We don't list a price the venue hasn't printed, we don't roll over last year's term hoping the dates hold, and when a section shows as full we say so and point you at the next one. For the studios that only teach occasionally, our fun classes guide is the fuller list; paint and sip is a separate guide because that's a different kind of evening.