Observe, Interpret, and Create

Free for Students and Educators

Designed for Grades 3–12

Our 2022-2023 Student Art Workshops are now available in person or virtually via Zoom!

Student Art Workshops provide an opportunity for students to pair the processes of observing and interpreting art from the Museum galleries with the exploratory process of creating art in workshops led by our Museum Educators. These free workshops are designed to offer a unique and layered art experience, whether experienced in person at the Museum or in your classroom via Zoom.

Students will have the opportunity to:

  • Observe and interpret art from throughout the Museum collection
  • Participate in individual prompts and dialogue designed to foster empathetic connections
  • Explore their ideas and experiment with studio art processes and materials
  • Make connections between the artworks on display in the Museum and the art they individually create
  • Engage in creative expression and personal visual storytelling through art

Thank you for your interest in student art workshops. Our workshops for this school year have been filled. Please see below for other opportunities.

Please email info@sdmart.org to receive updates on future Student Art Workshops.

Presented with support from the Julie Sourisa Memorial Art Fund.


Student Art Workshops Available
In Person and Virtually

In person: Join us at The San Diego Museum of Art for small group docent-led experiences in the Museum galleries. This time in the presence of art is designed to allow students to discover and engage with artworks in the Museum collection, followed by a multi-media hands-on art exploration in our Museum Art School with one of our Art and Empathy Museum Educators.

All supplies included. Maximum 36 students, 4 adults.

One adult chaperone per 10 students requested. Bus reimbursement scholarships available. Please inquire through the below online form.

  • Duration: 3 hours
  • Begins: 9:30 a.m.
  • Ends 12:30 p.m.

Live via Zoom: A Museum Educator will join your class Zoom with brief virtual tour designed to introduce students to the theme and engage with relevant artworks in the Museum collection, followed by a hands-on workshop led by a Museum Educator using multiple demonstration cameras. All supplies for the art projects will be prepared, packaged, and delivered to your school site*.

  • Duration 1.5 hours
  • Begins: As requested between 10:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
  • Ends: 1.5 hours later

One adult assistant to support in-classroom is recommended.

*Supply delivery limited to within 20-mile radius of Museum.


2022-2023 Fall and Winter Workshop

Eve of Saint John by Peter Hurd
Peter Hurd, Eve of Saint John, 1960. Tempera on board. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norton S. Walbridge, 1975. 69.

Landscape Mood Painting: Comfort and Calm

This year our Student Art Workshops explore “Comfort and Calm,” the theme for Young Art 2023, The San Diego Museum of Art’s open call to youth supporting a biennial exhibition featuring youth works of art from the San Diego and Tijuana regions. This special workshop experience invites youth to connect through art to their own lived experiences in seeking, cultivating, and creating comfort or calm, for themselves and others, and create a landscape mood painting in response.

A gallery tour will explore multiple works of art and encourage students to consider expressions of comfort and calm through a variety of imagery, media, and artistic approaches.


Thank you for your interest in student art workshops. Our workshops for this school year have been filled. Please see below for other opportunities.

Please email info@sdmart.org to receive updates on future Student Art Workshops.