EVENTS & WORKSHOPS
EVENTS & WORKSHOPS
Mother’s Day Kokedama Workshop – A Living Gift Experience
Celebrate Mother’s Day with a unique, hands-on botanical experience. In this guided workshop, guests will create their own elegant kokedama — a Japanese-inspired moss ball arrangement featuring a delicate orchid paired with curated tropical plants.
Each participant will learn the art of shaping and wrapping natural moss, designing a balanced composition, and caring for their living creation. The result is a timeless, sculptural piece that brings nature indoors — perfect as a meaningful gift or a personal keepsake.
This experience is designed to feel calming, creative, and elevated — ideal for enjoying quality time with loved ones.
What’s included:
$85 per person
Join us for an amazing opportunity to create and connect with Curated Collage!
To begin, you will flip through our carefully curated collage treasure boxes—each one a portal to artistic possibility. Like a curator in your own personal museum, you'll select the kit that speaks to your soul, then settle into our cozy creative corner where magic happens.
What awaits inside your artistic adventure kit?
Your creative journey unfolds in two acts: First, craft a mini masterpiece during our guided session—no experience required, just bring your curiosity! Our mentors will be there to nurture your artistic instincts as your collage comes to life.
Then, the adventure continues at home! Take your remaining treasures with you and let inspiration strike whenever it pleases. Your kit becomes a companion for future creative moments, whether it's a quiet Sunday afternoon or a burst of midnight creativity.
No experience needed. All supplies provided. $20 per person.
Join us as we explore the "Art" of book folding with Julianne Mahler!! Each class participant will create a folded Texas within their choice of provided book, using a personalized pattern created by the artist.
Using a pencil and ruler, each participant will create folds on designated pages, ultimately creating a unique heart design upon completion. The book will be finished using your choice of ribbon, and the final product will be a wonderful shelf-worthy piece of literary art!
PLUS, as a class bonus, a 2nd book folding pattern will be provided to each participant to use at home along with their choice of book (Value $5). Julianne's original book folding patterns are also available for purchase in her Etsy shop.
Whether you are looking to add unique artisan decor to your home's shelves or are looking for a creative, relaxing hobby, this workshop is for YOU!
No experience necessary. All supplies are included. $50 per person.
Gelli Plate Magic Workshop with Barbara Welch
Dive into the mesmerizing world of gel plate printmaking where every pull reveals a surprise! This hands-on adventure transforms ordinary materials into extraordinary art through the alchemy of texture, color, and spontaneous creativity.
Whether you're a complete beginner or seasoned maker, you'll discover the addictive joy of layering paints, pressing textures, and watching unique patterns emerge with each print. No two pieces are ever the same – that's the beautiful unpredictability of gel printing!
What awaits you:
*Master multiple gel plate techniques that will have you seeing texture everywhere
*Create a treasure trove of one-of-a-kind printed papers perfect for collage, card-making, and mixed media projects
*Experience the therapeutic rhythm of print, peel, repeat
*Walk away with your own collection of artful papers PLUS a stunning matted collage suitable for framing
All materials provided – just bring your sense of play and prepare to get wonderfully messy! In just 3 hours, you'll unlock a whole new world of creative possibilities.
Perfect for explorers, experimenters, and anyone ready to embrace happy accidents in art.
Spring Style Series | Workshop 1
Torn Paper Wildflowers
Celebrate the beauty of Texas in bloom without ever picking up a paintbrush. In this workshop, you'll create a stunning mixed-media floral piece inspired by the wildflowers of a Texas spring — using nothing but your hands and paper.
Working from photographs of native Texas wildflowers, you'll learn to tear, layer, and compose paper petals and leaves using an assortment of textured cardstock, vintage papers, and solid-colored cardstock. The torn edges are the magic — they give each flower its soft, organic character and make every piece completely one of a kind.
No art experience is needed. If you can tear paper, you can make something beautiful.
By the end of the workshop, you'll have a finished 6×6 canvas board ready to display, gift, or frame — a little piece of the Texas Hill Country you made with your own two hands.
All supplies provided. Textured cardstock, vintage papers, solid-colored cardstock, adhesive, reference wildflower photos, and a 6×6 canvas board are included with your registration.
See about for workshop description.
Bring a Little Magic to Your Garden
Imagine a shimmer of wings catching the afternoon light — that's exactly what you'll craft in this one-of-a-kind glass yard art workshop. Each participant will create two (2) pieces from available butterfly & dragonfly molds.
Choose your colors from a dazzling palette, and we'll coax them to life using ceramic molds, creating jewel-toned dragonflies & butterflies that look like they've just landed in your garden and decided to stay forever. Each piece is fired in a kiln, transforming raw glass into something luminous and lasting.
Every piece is mounted on a stem and returned to the gallery the following week, ready to take root in your outdoor world. No two will ever be exactly alike — that's the whole point.
Monoprint to Masterpiece: Seeing the Image Within
Step into a relaxed, exploratory gallery studio experience where color, texture, and intuition lead the way.
In this 3-hour workshop, you’ll begin by creating a series of layered monoprints using gelli plates, acrylic paint, and a variety of tools and textures. This part of the process is loose, playful, and freeing—no experience needed.
From there, you’ll choose from a curated selection of premade dry monoprints to learn how to transform them into a finished piece of artwork.
You’ll be guided through two simple and powerful approaches:
This class is about learning how to see differently—to recognize possibility inside a surface and bring it to life.
You’ll leave with:
Early Bird Pricing: Register before 5/9 $105 per person
All Other Registrations: $125 per person
Join us for this special paint-your-pet workshop with Jeff Lung!
After registering for the workshop, Lung will sketch your pet on an 8x10 canvas panel prior to the event.
During the workshop, enjoy bringing your sketch to life with colorful acrylic paint pens using color tips and tricks along with guidance from the artist.
Supplies included. No experience needed. All ages welcome (children under 12 with a parent/guardian). $65 pp.
In this workshop, participants will enjoy a creative process of designing a mixed media work of art incorporating collage and mark-making in a variety of media, with an encaustic wax finish for a unique and captivating result.
Building the Design
We will work with collage materials, pens, high-contrast photocopies, and
other mixed media materials to create a foundation for our encaustic overlay.
Making an Encaustic Sampler
Encaustic wax is a painting formula handed down from the ancient cultures of Egypt
and Greece. It is made by mixing beeswax with tree resin and, when cured, can endure
for centuries just as well as oil paint or tempera.
Encaustic Sampler Objectives:
We make a sampler to give you the opportunity to explore the medium and to learn its
awesome properties as well as its limitations before you use it in a project.
On your small piece of Encaustibord, you will explore the intrinsic nature of working with
encaustic wax and mixing it with other techniques such as drawing, painting and
collage.
We will incorporate the following techniques into your sampler:
1. Drawing with Sharpie pen
2. Drawing with charcoal or dry pastel or oil pastel
3. Drawing with pencil / ink
4. Collaging tissue paper
5. Collaging a line of text or photo (no slick magazine paper)
6. Stamping into the wax and/or forcing oil color into the incised lines
All supplies included. No artistic experience needed. Limited to 8 attendees.
Spring WAX Blooms: Floral Encaustic Art
Pressed flowers under wax, oil sticks to blend! Leave this workshop with your very own encaustic works of art on wood.
In this specialty workshop, you will learn all about painting with wax and fusing with heat with pressed flowers as our focus! We’ll also learn incising and tinting the surface with pigment sticks. ALL supplies included. We have plenty of supplies here but you are welcome to bring your own personal pressed flowers if you’ve got them. This 2 hour workshop is designed for artists of all levels, even those new to encaustic painting. You will leave this workshop with two (2) of your very own 5”x5” encaustic works of art on wood!
Other items participants may want to bring are: apron and disposable gloves.
Turn your own photos into encaustic works of art with Shauna Martin! In this workshop, participants will create (2), 5x5 encaustic photos on wood panels.
In this specialty workshop, you’ll be using your own photos, turned black & white, and oil sticks of all colors to create beautifully layered compositions! The end result will remind you of the timeless hand-painted photographs of the late 1800's but with a modern twist! We offer an assortment of supplies, but you are welcome to bring more; your favorite tissue paper (plain or pattern); favorite writings, quotes, poems, magazine cutouts, hand-made papers, fabric, etc. Essentially, if you like scrapbooking or journaling, this workshop is for you! Make sure to check your email after registration for a photo request from Shauna. Once she receives your images she will edit and get them printed for the event.
This 2 hour workshop is designed for artists of all levels, even those new to encaustic painting. All supplies included.
Ardest Gallery is a fine arts gallery representing top Texas 2D and 3D visual artists, located in The Woodlands, TX.
25200 Grogan's Park Drive
The Woodlands, TX 77380
832-296-6723
julieverville@ardestgallery.com
GALLERY HOURS
Wednesday to Friday 10am - 2pm
Saturdays 10am - 4pm
Copyright © 2025 Ardest Gallery. Site by Art Galleria
