If you're looking for kids' art classes in Newburgh, NY, here's what ours look like. If you've ever watched a kid peel a sheet of paper off an inked block, you know the moment. For a second, they hold their breath, and then the print is there, backwards and bolder than the drawing they started with, and they want to do it again. That moment is what Art Lab is built around.
Three afternoons a week at 113 Liberty Street, I turn our studio over to printmaking, paper mache, and art journaling for kids ages 7 to 14 from Newburgh, New Windsor, Cornwall, Beacon, and across Orange County, NY, and the Hudson Valley. On Saturday mornings, I teach Digital Art & Illustration. Here's a little about me, what happens in each class, what kids get out of it, and how to enroll for the fall sessions.
About me: Hanna Gundrum, Art Lab instructor
I'm an illustrator and muralist, and I work under the name Little House Ink. I grew up in the Midwest, studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and graduated with a BFA. Since then, I've painted more than 30 murals, including larger-than-life pieces for schools and towns in Beacon, Poughkeepsie, and Newburgh, and illustrated projects for companies, children's books, and community groups. My work draws on nature, textiles, street art, children's books, and travel.
The part of my background that matters most in our studio is the teaching. For years, I've worked as a creative mentor to adult artists with disabilities like autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, helping them learn new media, build small art businesses, and get their work into galleries. My studio's motto is "Art is for everyone," and I mean it. In Art Lab, that shows up as patience: nobody is told their idea is too big, and nobody leaves with a half-finished project in a bag.
I teach because the best part of being an artist is watching someone else find out they can make something. With kids, that happens fast. I teach them the technique and the tools they need, then get out of the way and let them decide what to make with it. My job is to facilitate the process and help them find their voice, rather than tell them what to create.
After-school art classes at Art Lab: three studio afternoons a week
Art Lab runs Tuesday through Thursday, 3:30 to 5:00 PM. Each day is its own class with its own projects, and every class runs in six-week sessions. Students can take one day or all three. Classes are small, with ten seats each, so I can get around to every table. Materials are provided.
Tuesdays: printmaking for kids
In Printmaking, students design their own printing blocks, carve and build them, mix ink, and pull original prints onto paper and fabric. The first week is simple stamps. By the end of six weeks, they're layering two colors, registering one print on top of another, and building repeating patterns.
Some of that printing happens on the LEGO printing presses that Newburgh Creates designed and built, the same ones we've brought to Storm King Art Center and to the Newburgh Farmers Market during Archtober. Kids press repurposed LEGO bricks into a base plate to build a design, ink it, and run it through the press. It's a fast way to learn the ideas every printmaker works with: shape, reversal, contrast, and what happens when two colors overlap.
Weekly printmaking classes for kids this age are rare in the Hudson Valley. Most programs fold a week of printing into a general art class, or save it for teens. Here, it gets the whole six weeks.
What students learn: designing an image that works as a print, carving and building blocks safely, inking and registration, color mixing and layering, pattern and composition, and editioning, which means making a numbered series and signing it the way a printmaker does.
Wednesdays: paper mache sculpture
Paper Mache is proof that newspaper, paste, and a good idea can become almost anything. Students start with a sketch, build an armature that will hold its shape, mix paste, and layer paper until the form is strong enough to sand, prime, and paint. Projects grow over the six weeks from small creatures to bold masks and big builds.
This is the slowest class of the three on purpose. Paper mache has to dry between layers, so students learn to plan a project across several weeks, to fix a wobble instead of starting over, and to finish a surface so the piece looks the way they imagined it. That patience is the same skill our BUILDLab students use when a prototype fails and needs a second version.
What students learn: designing a sculpture from sketch to three-dimensional form, building armatures, layering for strength, surface work, form and proportion, and craftsmanship.
Thursdays: art journaling and mixed media
An art journal is a sketchbook, scrapbook, and diary in one. In Art Journaling, students build and fill journals of their own, one spread at a time: drawing, painting, collage, found papers, lettering, pockets, fold-outs, and mixed-media experiments. Over six weeks, they pick up composition, color, and a toolbox of techniques, along with the habit of making something every week.
Of the three classes, this is the one families tell us keeps going at home. Students leave with a journal full of their own work and the skills to keep filling it.
What students learn: composition and color across mixed-media spreads, drawing, painting, and collage techniques that work together, lettering and layout, built pages with found materials, journaling as a weekly creative habit, and measuring, cutting, and finishing.
Saturday digital art class for kids: Digital Art & Illustration
Are your kids drawing characters in the margins of their notebooks? Digital Art & Illustration is for them. On Saturday mornings from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM, I teach students how to take the drawing they already love into digital tools, where they can sketch, color, layer, and polish work the way professional illustrators do.
Each six-week session covers the fundamentals that make digital art click: working in layers, choosing a color palette, character design from first sketch to finished illustration, line, shading, and texture, and sharing work and giving kind, useful feedback. The drawing skills carry right back to paper. No experience or equipment is needed. We provide the laptops and drawing tablets.
Homeschool classes on Thursday mornings
I also run the art and design side of our homeschool labs. Right now, we've got one homeschool lab running, with more planned soon. Homeschool BUILDLab meets Thursdays from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM, and I lead the art and design while Dave Long, our robotics and engineering instructor, leads the tech side. It's one multi-age group capped at ten students, so a 7-year-old and a 13-year-old can work on the same project at different depths. Many families count the hours toward art, technology, and science enrichment in their Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP), the yearly plan New York State asks homeschooling families to file with their district, and we're happy to describe program activities for quarterly reports.
What kids learn from printmaking, paper mache, and art journaling
Parents sometimes ask why a STEAM studio puts so much weight on printmaking and paper mache. The short answer is that the A in STEAM isn't decoration. Every project in Art Lab integrates design thinking: it starts with a sketch, becomes a plan, runs into a problem, and gets revised. That's the same design cycle our robotics teams use. Kids who have carved a block backwards and had to re-carve it are better at reading a robot's mistake and fixing it.
A few things happen in every one of these classes, whatever the medium:
- Planning across weeks. A paper mache creature or an edition of prints can't be finished in one sitting. Students learn to hold an idea over six sessions and come back to it.
- Fine motor control and tool skills. Carving tools, brayers, scissors, paste, and brushes, used carefully enough to get the result they want.
- Working with mistakes. Prints come out backwards, armatures sag, a spread gets muddy. Fixing it is the lesson.
- Finishing. Every student leaves with work they can hold, sign, and give away. That's rarer than it sounds in a kid's week.
There's research behind the habit, too. A study of Houston's Arts Access Initiative, covering more than 10,000 students in grades 3 through 8 across 42 schools, found that students who received more arts education wrote measurably better, had fewer disciplinary infractions, and showed more compassion for others, with elementary students also reporting more engagement with school. The researchers published their findings through the Brookings Institution in 2019.
What we see in our studio is simpler. Kids who make things every week get more confident about making things. They stop asking whether something is allowed and start asking how to do it.
Fall 2026 dates, cost, and how to enroll
All four classes are open to youth ages 7 to 14 anywhere in the Hudson Valley. They meet at 113 Liberty Street in downtown Newburgh, a short walk from Washington's Headquarters and an easy drive from New Windsor, Cornwall, Fishkill, and Beacon.
Fall 2026 sessions:
- Printmaking, Tuesdays 3:30 to 5:00 PM. Session 1: September 15 to October 20. Session 2: October 27 to December 1.
- Paper Mache, Wednesdays 3:30 to 5:00 PM. Session 1: September 16 to October 21. Session 2: October 28 to December 16, with no class November 11 or November 25.
- Art Journaling, Thursdays 3:30 to 5:00 PM. Session 1: September 17 to October 22. Session 2: October 29 to December 10, with no class November 26.
- Digital Art & Illustration, Saturdays 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM. Session 1: September 19 to October 24. Session 2: October 31 to December 12, with no class November 28.
Enroll through AfterSchoolHQ from each program page: Printmaking, Paper Mache, Art Journaling, and Digital Art & Illustration. Cost should never be a barrier. Partial scholarships are available for every program. The application takes a few minutes, asks for no tax returns or income verification, and typically covers 25 to 50 percent of tuition. We respond within three business days. Siblings are welcome to enroll together.
Questions? Call (845) 244-6559 or email info@newburghcreates.com. Or come by on a Tuesday afternoon and watch someone pull their first print. I'll be the one with ink on my hands.
Frequently asked questions
Does my child need art experience to join Art Lab?
No. Every Art Lab class starts from the beginning and meets each student where they are. The classes are for ages 7 to 14, and all skill levels are welcome.
Can my child take more than one Art Lab class?
Yes. Printmaking, Paper Mache, and Art Journaling are separate classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons. Students can take one day or all three, and each class runs in six-week sessions.
Do we need a tablet or software for Digital Art & Illustration?
No. Newburgh Creates provides the laptops and drawing tablets for the Saturday class. The only requirement is liking to draw.
What does my child take home?
Finished work, every week. Printmaking students leave with pulled prints, Paper Mache students with painted sculptures, Art Journaling students with a journal full of their own spreads, and Digital Art students with finished illustrations.
Are there art classes for homeschoolers?
Yes. I teach the art and design side of Homeschool BUILDLab on Thursday mornings, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM, for ages 7 to 14, and we're planning to add more homeschool labs soon.
Are scholarships available for the art classes?
Yes. Partial scholarships are available for every after-school program. The application takes a few minutes, asks for no income verification, and is answered within three business days.
Sources
- Art Lab: Printmaking, Paper Mache, Art Journaling, and Digital Art & Illustration program pages
- Little House Ink, Hanna Gundrum's studio
- Build Your Block! LEGO Printmaking with Newburgh Creates, Archtober Newburgh 2025, The Fullerton
- Kisida and Bowen, "New evidence of the benefits of arts education," Brookings Institution, February 12, 2019