Wild Animals! Kids Winter Art Class (1-9 July 2026)

Wild Animals! Kids Winter Art Class (1-9 July 2026)Wild Animals! Kids Winter Art Class with Jane du Rand 103pm: Wed 1 July, Thu 2 July, Wed 8 July, Thu 9 July 2026 Jane du Rand's popular childrens art classes are going where the wild things are! Talk Mum or Dad into dropping you off at Plant Empire on Wednesday and Thursday and Wednesday and Thursday over the winter school holidays for 4 days of art activities designed just for kids. For this holiday class, we will become artist zoologists, looking at

Wild Animals! Kids Winter Art Class with Jane du Rand
10–3pm: Wed 1 July, Thu 2 July, Wed 8 July, Thu 9 July 2026

Jane du Rand's popular children’s art classes are going where the wild things are! Talk Mum or Dad into dropping you off at Plant Empire on Wednesday and Thursday and Wednesday and Thursday over the winter school holidays for 4 days of art activities designed just for kids. 

For this holiday class, we will become artist-zoologists, looking at the native animals that live around us in Queensland, what they do, and why they are important. We will draw inspiration from the wonderful shapes, patterns and colours found on the live animals that are going to pay us a special visit, from blue-tongued lizards and galahs through to turtles and snakes, and will create wonderful artworks to take home.

Each day, we will learn new artistic skills around a central theme which encourages us to appreciate beauty and life in the world around us. We will explore step-by-step exercises in mediums that include drawing, painting, ceramics, sculptures, and mosaics. We will enjoy a special on-site visit from an animal keeper who will bring real live animals for us to see up close. It's going to be fun!

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Here's a closer look at what we're going to do on each day of the course:

Day 1 (Wednesday 1 July): Wildlife Incursion and Drawing

• First up, we will have a get-to-know each other session at the wonderful Plant Empire workshop space.
• Next up, we welcome the Wildcall team of animal keepers who will bring their collection of wild animals for us to look at and touch if we want to. We will learn about how these animal live in the wild and what people can do to help protect their natural environments.
• Afterwards, we will practise different ways of looking at animals and drawing them from life and talk about the importance of other elements in our environment (like plants and animals) that are important for our animals and which we might want to include in our drawings.

• In the afternoon, we create animals out of mosaics and ceramics based on our drawings of the morning's visitors.

Day 2 (Thursday 2 July): Ceramics

• After a small break apart, we will all be back together and will get to work converting our drawings onto 3D and 2D clay reliefs based on our drawings and observations of the animals.
• Some of the ceramic pieces that we make will be made especially to use in conjunction with our mosaic project, which we'll work on the following week.
• In the afternoon, we will paint our ceramic pieces with underglazes, and Jane will fire these in the kiln for us before we return on Tuesday.

Day 3 (Wednesday 8 July): Painting

• This is an exciting day as we will be painting our reliefs in fine detail using underglazes and oxides. This is the stage where our sculptures really come together as colour is applied.
• We will paint over all our beautiful work in a strange green glaze which is going to magically turns clear and glossy in the kiln, which is where they'll go straight after the workshop so that they're ready for Thursday.
  

Day 4 (Thursday 9 July): Mosaics

• Today we will make the background mosaic for our animal reliefs featuring some of the three-dimensional ceramic pieces we have already made together with some glass and ceramic mosaic tiles. 
• Jane will have fired all our ceramic pieces that we made over the last couple of days so that we can attach them to our mosaic.
• In the afternoon, we will grout our mosaics. Afterwards, we clean the grout, continue attaching decorative pieces and touch up painting.
• Finally, we reveal our finished artworks to our friends and family and sit back to enjoy our work and their adulation over a warm drink and delicious snacks.

Materials and Collection

All tools and materials for the classes are included in the course fee, along with kiln-firing of ceramic pieces. We will supply morning and afternoon tea for kids to munch on during breaks, but please pack lunch for your child each day, as well as snacks if your child has allergies. Please wear closed shoes and an apron if you are worried about getting clay, glue or grout on your clothes.

Who Should Attend?

This course is aimed at children 8-13 years of age; however, children slightly younger or older are welcome to attend with siblings. 

About Jane du Rand

Jane du Rand is passionate about working with children and teaching them how to use art to engage with the world around them in creative ways. As a successful professional artist, trained architect, and avid nature lover, Jane’s lessons combine art, technique and nature in a welcoming and supportive learning environment. She has developed and delivered numerous international children’s art programs over the last three decades, including regular workshops, school-based art projects, and community art installations.

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Cost

$480 / $432 (Frequent workshoppers)

Frequent workshopper discount: Sign up for 2 or more Plant Empire workshops, or register 2 or more people for the same workshop, to receive 10% off the total registration price (discount will appear at checkout).

Location

Plant Empire has moved! This workshop will be held at our new premises in Tennyson, Brisbane: 15/55 Lofter St, Tennyson Q 4105.

Accessibility

In our new premises, we have ground floor workshop spaces as well as mezzanine level spaces with stairs. The ground floor spaces are all level without any steps, while the mezzanines are accessible via a staircase with 22 steps and 1–2 landings. Please let us know if you have any mobility issues that would limit your access to the mezzanine spaces so that we can ensure that your workshop is located at ground level by adding a note in the special instructions field when you register for your workshop: for example, "no stairs" or similar.

Reminders

You have full control over how (and how often) you receive reminders for our events. You will receive one email confirmation from us when you purchase your workshop registration; but we won't send any further email reminders, so please ensure that you have the workshop details in your diary. You can also use the "add to calendar" function in our events calendar to add workshops to your digital calendar and customise your reminder preferences.

Cancellation Policy

Please choose carefully before registering for this workshop as we do not offer refunds on event bookings. If you need to cancel your place up to 24 hours before the workshop, we will provide you with a voucher that you can use to attend a future workshop or any other purchase at Plant Empire. We regret that we are unable to provide vouchers for cancellations made within 24 hours of the workshop.

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