Smithsonian Associates Online Programs

Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist Essdras M Suarez leads a visual tour of two of Cuba's most captivating cities: Havana and Trinidad. Suarez's street photos document Havana's rich history and resilient spirit, while his shots of Trinidad evoke its charm through cobblestone lanes and pastel adobes. In photographs that reveal the cultural tapestry of Havana and the timeless allure of Trinidad, Suarez captures the deep connection between their inhabitants and their environments.

Upcycle a vintage quilt or make your own fabric selection and follow a basic pattern to craft your custom quilted coat just in time for fall.

Discover a variety of approaches to creating mixed-media collages and learn techniques for creating interesting, personalized papers for art applications. Find out how to capitalize on everyday materials; learn to use household tools and utensils to make stencils and create patterns and textures on papers.

Beginning students explore watercolor techniques and learn new approaches to painting through demonstration, discussion, and experimentation.

Discover how visual art can inspire creative writing and how writing can offer a powerful way to experience art. Join Mary Hall Surface, the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, for three online workshops that spotlight a diverse range of visual art chosen to inspire writers of all experience levels to deepen their process and practice. This writing session is inspired by 20th-century African American artist Romare Bearden’s Tomorrow I May Be Far Away.

Making art can be a wonderful way to escape from everyday life. It can also be a useful tool to understand current events. Work with newspapers and magazines to create a visual representation of your take on the news through collage.

Say goodbye to flat and boring painting as you learn to create patterns of light and dark in watercolor through demonstrations and hands-on exercises.

Our modern world echoes and even replicates the creative vestiges of the past—and the key to understanding our surroundings is through an overview of ancient material culture. Focusing on the Mediterranean region, art historian Renee Gondek offers a survey of the earliest traces of artistic production from the Paleolithic period through the late Bronze Age. (World Art History Certificate core course, 1 credit)

Take your paintings to the next level with simple secrets that every watercolor artist should know. Techniques demonstrated in the class are particularly useful for painting captivating landscapes.

Lecturer Paul Glenshaw looks at great works of art in their historical context by delving into the time of the artist, exploring the present they inhabited, and what shaped their vision and creations. Together with Revolutionary War scholar Iris de Rode he examines The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull, covering the story of the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781 and the fascinating process of the creation of the epic work by Trumbull. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)