Artist's Academy Review

Monday, December 2nd

2024 Painting Lesson Reviews

Artist's Academy

• Pay monthly ($8.50) or yearly ($102)
• Stream on phone, TV, computer, or phone
• Some free videos
• Cancel anytime
• 30-day refund policy

Artist's Academy is a virtual studio where artists can develop self-expression through painting and drawing. Their lessons are taught by award-winning artists whose work is displayed in prominent locations all throughout the country. On the company's "About Us” page, you can read a bio of each instructor to better get to know their background and decide if one of their classes would suit you.

Skill-based videos

To get an idea of what types of videos and classes are available through Artist's Academy, navigate to their "videos” section and browse through what's available. You can watch a video intro that goes over the structure of the class and what is taught, but you'll need to be a member to watch the video in full. Most videos are between 20 and 40 minutes and teach things like hand/eye training for sketching, watercolor paint application, color mixing, brush strokes, creating the illusion of light and form, how to create texture, and more.

Free content

There is a "free videos” section from Artist's Academy, but these are only 2-4 minutes long and teach brief skills like how to clean a palette, lead vs. titanium, varnishing a painting, why you should paint vertically, how to storyboard, and much more. These videos will cover the materials you'll need for the paid classes and how to set them up so that you're all ready to go.

Jumbled videos

Right away we realized that there isn't a lot of organization to how Artist's Academy displays most of their videos. It's not somewhere where you find a full course that starts from scratch and helps you successively build your way up step-by-step. You're not necessarily working on one particular project or painting through all of these videos that you add to over time. Rather, it seems like a random collection of painting/sketching videos that all have different topics and you can choose whatever you're interested in at the time.

Buy a class

If you want to get really specific with a certain type of painting or skill, the "shop” page from Artist's Academy is more organized. You can pay between $29.99 and $69.99 for classes that take you from beginning to end on a project. Some popular ones are "Realistic Watercolors Step by Step”, "7 Days of Drawing”, "Startup Library: Painting with Acrylics”, or "Startup Library: Painting with Watercolors”. If you're a member, you get a discount on these classes, but you still have to pay separately for them.

Monthly or yearly payments

To become a member with unlimited access to painting and drawing lessons and articles, video streaming on your mobile device, tablet, computer, or TV, you can sign up to pay monthly or yearly for a subscription. The monthly cost is $8.50 or you can pay $102 for a full year upfront. There is no discount or benefit to paying in advance besides knowing that you have a full 12 months of content that you can take advantage of whenever you want. If you pay for a year in advance and are unhappy with your membership, you could get a full refund within 30 days. After that, refunds happen on a prorated basis, but you can cancel at any time.

Hard to match skill levels

It would be nice if the skill level for each video was a little more clear. If you're a beginner, how do you find the classes that are really basic? You don't want to jump into shading and lighting and creating details on someone's face if you're not even sure how to hold the brush correctly. Or on the flip side, what if you're an expert painter and don't want to waste your time with videos that aren't useful? We wish that videos were listed with some sort of label indicating the target skill level.

Surprise price hikes

There aren't many reviews from people who have used Artist's Academy, but the ones we found weren't good. Most people complained that the first year's pricing that's advertised is really low, but they'll surprise you the second year with much higher pricing and charge you without warning. People said they were charged anywhere from $50 to $100 more the second year and some were even told by customer service that there is a no refund policy, even though their website states differently. No one is thrilled with the material and they say you can get similar or better content from YouTube. There is no Better Business Bureau rating for this company, and most of what we did find was just frustration from students.

Not a good starting place

If we were wanting a lot of structure and just getting started on our painting journey, we would lose our steam pretty quickly with Artist's Academy. We felt a little overwhelmed trying to grasp all that's available to us and where we should even start. The price is definitely affordable, but we'd rather put our money into something that makes us feel like we are making a lot of progress and gives us a clear path to success. We recommend going higher on our list for a better-organized option for your painting lessons.