Art Magic — Local services in Oceanside

I was very happy with my finished project. But the class itself was a problem.

First of all, it started late and ran over the stated time by nearly an hour. No one greeted you, checked you in, or made you feel at all welcome. The instructor spent an inordinate amount of time getting us to "set an intention" for our class, passing out pieces of paper to write them on and generally kumbaya-ing the artistic process into some higher power experience. She also spent a lot of time telling us about the materials we would use -- helpful, perhaps, if you were planning to start your own epoxy pouring business but frankly overkill for one-time students.

There were a LOT of ways the whole experience could have been made more expedient, including, but not limited to, having all the plastic epoxy cups premarked instead of trying to explain how to do so to 11 clueless students; having more than one set of the two epoxy components (and have back up stock so she didn't waste time refilling the bottles); have a color board made up in front of the class with each color labeled rather than expecting students to know which of four shades produced the turquoise you thought you wanted to use (pastes/powders for the various colors in jars that all looked the same on trays in the middle of the table); having an assistant that actually knew what she was doing so that maybe two people could answer questions/operate the heat gun/etc.

Most annoying of all was the fact that Kay, the instructor, continually scolded people like we were in third grade. Really? On the day we came, it appeared nearly everyone was there with one friend. I can't even imagine the chaos that would entail if all the participants knew each other, because we were continually being told to shut up and pay attention, that timing was critical, that you'd ruin your piece. And how are we supposed to fold our zen "intentions" into our project when we're made to feel like inattentive eight-year-olds?

I devoutly hope Kay gets her expanded space and uses part of it to more expediently allow pick ups of the finished product (nowhere had I read in the booking info that you would need to return in 10 day's time to pick up), maybe utilizing a separate room or designating an assistant to help locate, because the pick up schedule was ridiculous: 1/2 hour before or after a class, which might run over, or be held off site, etc. I get that people dropping in at all times would cause disruption in the instruction, but I traveled an hour to take the class and worried that one good crash on the Camp Pendleton stretch of the 5 could have meant that I would have been turned away for "interrupting" the class. Why couldn't the assistant be detailed for pick up duty, instead of following Kay around filming her every move for whatever Tik Tok or...

Im sorry to say I was very disappointed with the instructor that we had at your Oceanside location. Class was scheduled to start at 3:30pm. Instructor was almost 30 min behind schedule from previous class. No communication from Peg on what was happening. We were just standing around not knowing what was going on . No greeting or welcome at all. She needed an assistant to help with our large class. Long wait times for products, finishing of products and she just was not very clear on a lot of her instruction. Many people were confused and made mistakes with mixing export which made our class even later because she was just understaffed. Love the end results of our ornaments, but I won’t be back or...

The class was wonderful, I had no idea that resin/epoxy was something that an unartistic person could do. I was able to easily make some beautiful coasters and am looking at purchasing my own supplies now to make more items. So if anything, this fun class is going to cost me $ (in my own supplies hahaha) and i will always have holiday gifts!! I dont know if it is a getting old thing, but i have never been interested in doing anything artsy, but that has changed! Thank you so much for offering this course it...