Top Art Classes in Singapore

Mathematics, English, Chinese, Science…tired of the same old boring subjects? Pick up a new skill this 2021 and sign up for art classes now!

Our Local Art Scene

In a recent survey done by The Sunday Times, artists were ranked as the top 5 non-essential jobs. Meanwhile, a 2017 report showed that more than 70% of our School of The Arts (SOTA) students do not pursue a career in art. These statistics show what looks like a dying art scene in Singapore, where creativity is snuffed out or overlooked. We are here to convince you that art classes remain important, to which you might be wondering why. Read on to find out more!

Why enroll in Art Class?

Previously, art training was regarded as superfluous, unnecessary, non-essential, hence arts classes were reduced to a minimum. Presently, evidence has substantially demonstrated that arts training does create more innovative, creative learners and leaders. 

Years of teaching show why arts education is important:

• Arts training helps students to develop creative problem-solving capacities
• Arts supplemented classes enable visualization of abstract concepts, easing comprehension.
• Arts training inculcates motor skills, linguistic skills, interactive skills, making choices, being adventurous.
• Visual arts training educates learners about colour, design, lay-out, perception, and composition: these techniques are essential in aesthetics (visual, digital) of academic study.
• Blending art across disciplines engages students who are usually apathetic to arts, aesthetics.
• Arts training enhances critical thinking, challenging students to examine the assumptions behind their world views.
• Arts training rigorously engages learners of all ages.
• Art training students imparts culture appreciation and exposes students to diverse cultures.
• A study on Arts training in America reported that young people who engage on regular terms in visual arts training (three hours a day on three days each week through one full year) are 4 times more likely excel in academics, excel in science experimentation and calculus, to excel in creative expression. 

Visual Arts Education: A History

A study of American schools found that arts training led to enhanced discipline, improved attendance, higher completion rates, and better grades.

Art is not merely confined to creative expression, which was the prevailing theme of arts training for most of the twentieth century. Expression may be essential, but researchers have found correlations between learning in the visual arts and absorbing knowledge and skills across disciplines. From a 1993 Arts Education Partnership Working Group study, possible advantages, gains from visual arts learning include heightened student motivation in learning, improved school attendance, higher graduation rates, enhanced multicultural engagement, as well as the development of higher-order thought processes, creativity, innovation, and problem-solving capacities.

Art education is based in drawing, and including curriculum in reading, writing, singing, and playing an instrument made up the foundational children’s school curriculum from the Renaissance. Drawing remained core curriculum throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when teachers understood that drawing was as intellectual as nature study, geography, and other subjects. Art education later expanded to include painting, design, graphic arts, and the “plastic arts”(e.g., sculpture and ceramics), although art continued to be appraised in utilitarian terms.

In the twentieth century, with the dawn of modernism, art education in the United States veered away from a utilitarian approach to one of creative expression, or aesthetics for self-improvement. Art was still appreciated as important, although less regularly as a core discipline, during the early segments of the century and then declined in significance with the launch of World War II. In the post-war period, particularly after the launch of Sputnik in 1957, core-subject focus shifted heavily to mathematics and science. Art education declined substantially in 1970s, when dwindling school attendance (the graduating baby boomer generation) and a severe USA energy emergency brought about multiple school closures and program shutdowns. Art programs were widely reduced or minimized.

But the 1970s also heralded a period of hard work by art educators to reignite an interest in the arts. At the Getty Centre for Education in the Arts, for example, work began on the implementation of a radical theory: discipline-based art education (DBAE). This theory proposed that art making (or “studio art”)–the driving force of creative expression–needed to be broadened and underpinned by observation of the supplementary fields of art history, aesthetics, and art criticism, even when teaching the youngest pupils. DBAE theory, most observers now agree, has been essential in reviving art education and revolutionizing arts education methodology.

More twentieth century developments are significant. First, constructivism replaced behaviourism as foundational pedagogical theory, drawing on work by psychological studies scholars, such as Jerome Bruner (1960), Jean Piaget (1974), and Lev S. Vygotsky (1978). Constructivism claims that learners play crucial roles in “constructing” their learning.  Where behaviourism views the teacher the imparter of knowledge, constructivism views educators more as facilitators who help students learn facts, skills, practical application.

Second, postmodernism succeeded modernism. First acknowledged in architecture by Charles Jencks (1977), the grounding feature of postmodern theory is the lack of cultural imperialism. In art education this spurred greater emphasis on multiculturalism and extension of the classical canon’s borders.

Thirdly, the multiple intelligences theory, posited by Howard Gardner (1983), demonstrated that children reason and engage learning based on personal intellectual gifts. Gardner acknowledged seven intelligences–musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal–and later added others. Art education, particularly as filtered through perspectives of DBAE theory, utilizes intelligences that are atypical and more creative, left-brained, intuitive, innovative.

Through planning, enforcing arts programs based on these principles, most arts pedagogues assume that “students can arrive at their own knowledge, beliefs, and values for making personal and artistic decisions. In other terms, they can arrive at a broad-based, well-grounded understanding of nature, value, and meaning of arts as a part of their own humanity” (Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, pp. 18–19).

Why Are Art Classes in Singapore Important? 

Art is an integral part of society as it allows us to express ourselves freely and art classes help to keep the creative spark alive in children and adults alike. Art has many benefits, to name a few, it: 

1. Stimulates creativity and enhances the imagination
2. Makes one more observant and detail-oriented
3. Cultivates problem-solving skills to think outside the box
4. Boosts self-esteem and confidence, gives a sense of accomplishment
5. Outlet for cathartic expression, helping in stress relief

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for the top art classes in Singapore:

Arts and Crafts Supplies in Singapore

Now that you are ready to sign up for art classes, here are some places you might want to consider when looking for art supplies: 

1. Krafers’ Paradise 
2. Sagacity Art and Crafts
3. Art Friend
4. Junior De Artist
5. Overjoyed

Learn Art Online!

To further help you enhance your artistic skills, do check out these YouTube channels that offer great tutorials on arts and crafts:

1. Proko.
2. Draw with Jazza.
3. Aaron Blaise.
4. Sarah Tepes.
5. Mark Crilley.
6. Bayley Jae.
7. Bobby Chiu
8. Emmy Kalia
9. Sophie Chan
10. ImagineFX

Government Efforts

Precisely because art is often overlooked, Singapore is now trying to actively make it a part of our lives, here are some initiatives the government has put in place for art.

Showcase 

• 1996: Singapore Art Museum (SAM), 
• 2002: STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery 
• 2011: Art Stage Singapore
• 2012: Gillman Barracks 
• 2015: National Gallery Singapore (the Gallery)

Education

• 2013: Nanyang Technological University Centre for Contemporary Art (NTU CCA)
• Early 2000s: 
• LASALLE College of the Arts
• Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA)

Events

• Singapore Biennale 
• Singapore Art Show
• Singapore Art Week 

Schemes

• Land Transport Authority’s Art in Transit Programme
• Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) Public Sculpture Masterplan
• URA’s Art Incentive Scheme
• National Heritage Board’s Tax Incentive Scheme

Tertiary course fees for Arts Education in Singapore:

Course fees indicated here apply to students entering NAFA in the academic year of 2021, with studies commencing on 2 August 2021. 

Academic Year 2021

Informal Arts Classes:

At Boulevart, art jams are priced at $35 per session for 2 hours, with free reign over supplies and tools.

Heartroom Gallery is also a painting space, classroom for amateurs. 2.5-hour art jams are $38 per session.

Conclusion

In summary, the art scene in Singapore can be very much alive if you know where to look. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for some art classes and jamming sessions at any of these top art classes. Grab your loved ones, close friends, or even fly solo and get ready to learn a new skill this 2020!

Editor’s Note:

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