ActonArt Drawing School — Local services in Acton

Observation skills are what allowed Edward Jenner to discover a smallpox vaccination. What does that have to do with art? If you truly want your child to succeed, you will give him or her the opportunity to learn to SEE, OBSERVE, then DRAW. These skills are found in not only our best artists but also our best doctors, scientists, and engineers. My four children have been poured into at Acton Art since 2011 when we first started attending classes. None of mine are brilliant artists per se, but learning to see and observe then draw it has given them a very important skill set. If you want your children to succeed in life, give them this chance. The classes are incredibly professional, the supplies outstanding, and the instructors challenge children in a way that they develop their own sophistication in approaching the creation of their own projects. If you happen to have child that shows signs of being gifted in art -- this is the place to get them started for a lifetime of creation. Thank you John and all of the wonderful instructors for all of these years past and years to come in Instructional Drawing class and private art tutorials. We so...

We live on the North Shore and searched all over for an art school that teaches fundamental technique rather than acting like a crèche with paint brushes. It's a 45-minute drive in traffic to ActonArt from where we live but I look forward to it every week because I know that my daughter is building her skills when she goes there and we get some spectacular output as a bonus! John Goodnough and his team strike a great balance between a disciplined approach to teaching art while allowing the kids to express themselves and have fun. Examples of techniques, materials, and themes used are: perspective, light and shade, detail, portrait, architecture, wildlife, flowers using charcoal, chalk pastel, watercolor, and pencil. John always says that it's the kids who have the talent but ActonArt knows how to make that...

ActonArt is a vital resource in the arts and is a nurturing leader in enabling a full education in Massachusetts. ActonArt is a quiet force in putting the "A" into STEM, to empower it as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics). I observe ActonArt as not only fostering growth in art itself but just as importantly awakening capacities for observation, imagination and flexible thinking in the sister STEM disciplines.

Leila Kinney, executive director of arts initiatives at MIT, writes: “Beginning with the presidency of Jerome H. Wiesner in the 1970s, MIT incorporated the arts as a conduit of innovation, believing them to be essential to the creative environment of a research institution renowned for science and...