Art Classes

Art Classes with KAO

Pilot classes start in August-September 2026, local to the Grand Rapids, MI area (occasionally elsewhere as needed).

Group classes are 90 minutes long.
5 people = $200 total
4 people = $175 total
3 people = $150 total
*$150 group class minimum
*All art supplies included (paint, brushes, canvas, clean-up)

Single-person sessions are also available for a 2 hour class = $100
(Let me know if supplies are needed for a fee).

(15% off Group and Single-person classes for Fall/Winter when booked before the end of August 2026, contact Symbiotikels@icloud.com.)
Note: these classes don’t start until September 2026.

I’m considering launching a specialized one-on-one art mentorship program if people would be interested. This would be a 3-session painting program focused on basics of perception and light, how to analyze and improve your own observations, color mixing, hues vs values, composition. As well as proper care for brushes, tips for prepping/finishing canvases. Please let me know if you’d be interested in this.
($250 total for three 1-hr sessions, supplies included if needed)

I am flexible on location. Classes may be done at my home base or at yours (if local to Grand Rapids, MI area or otherwise discussed).

As my season at my part-time non-profit job comes to slow Summer, I’m looking to start independently teaching art classes/lessons to gain professional skills and follow my silly little heart. I find I’m currently limited in that teaching experience beyond research from college (2021) and would like to advance.
My education experience is a BS in biochemistry from CMU. I only speak English fluently, but my mind thinks in English, Binokid (an indigenous Filipino language), Spanish, and a little bit of French. Binokid is the main language of my inner world, and I’m currently reteaching myself the language I knew as a child and had forgotten as an adult. This allows me to think in ways, and hopefully teach art in ways that are perspective-widening to my students, as I’m able to process “outside the box” as an artist.

My teaching curriculum focuses on the scientific process as applied to art. How can you predict and analyze your own work better? How can you train your own eye? There is theory to art, and my teaching focuses on helping you unlock your own personal theory as you develop your art style and skills.
Scientific lessons may include the physics of light and how it works in a system, color balancing, harmony and equilibrium, as well as general scientific processes such as how to form a hypothesis and analyze qualitative data. Art is a repetition of color and motifs in a meaningful order. My goal is to teach communication and language skills through art, to help process ideas that may be otherwise complex to transmit.

My color theory is a matter of experimentation and practice. I pick my primaries from anywhere on the color wheel, noting what colors actually are in my perception, not what they “should be”. This allows freedom of expression and creativity in my process.
I have taught myself which colors I prefer to go with which in my own personal style through experimentation, practice, and analysis. That includes personal meanings for individual colors along with formal color theory.
Art is your own personal, colorful language to share. That’s what I’d like to teach- how to read and utilize your own language to the best of your abilities.

Color (visual)

Color Theory

KST (Kels Standard Theory)