Summer Art Camp 2026

Hooray! It is back!  Spend your summer at Chattanooga’s only fine art school, Townsend Atelier!  Our popular summer art camp is back with all-new art experiences for your child. Choose from five different sessions designed for ages 6-12.  Our camps fill up with waiting lists, so please register early.  To ensure a quality experience for all campers, each session will be limited to 10 participants. Each session is thoughtfully designed and taught by our professional artists and art educators. Age-appropriate, educational, and fun, each camp is packed with a variety of art techniques and materials, ranging from painting and drawing to sculpture, printmaking, and more. Materials are included in the camp fee.  Each session is held at Townsend Atelier’s spacious facility in the Arts Building in downtown Chattanooga. There will be a lunch break each day. Students will need to bring their own lunch and drink. Afternoon snacks will be provided. Sibling discount! Register one child and a sibling gets a 20% discount.   Please register over the phone by calling us to apply this discount.   Session I | Shadow Stories June 8 & 9 9:00 am-3:00 pm |  Ages 9-12 Instructor:  Hollie Chastain Cost:  $90 Step into a world of light and imagination! In this hands-on shadow puppet workshop, kids will design and create their own shadow puppets, then bring them to life using light, movement, and storytelling. Participants will explore simple puppet-making techniques, experiment with shadows and silhouettes, and collaborate to invent characters and short scenes with our very own shadow stage. The workshop encourages creativity, problem-solving, and playful performance.  Session II | Mini Masterpieces June 15-19 9:00 am-3:00 pm | Ages 6-8 Instructor: Grace Haley Cost:  $250 Masterpieces come in all shapes, sizes, and materials. Our young artists will learn about the works of famous artists like Picasso, Mark Rothko, Van Gogh, Bridget Riley, Helen Frankenthaler and more. We will also take a day to learn about local Chattanooga artists.  Campers will take what they learned about the styles and materials of the artists and make their own masterpieces.  Painting, sculpture, drawing, and collage will all be explored, and a colorful portfolio will be ready to take home at the end of the week! Session III | Shadow Stories July 6 & 7 9:00 a.m.-3:00 pm | Ages 9-12 Instructor:  Hollie Chastain Cost:  $90 Step into a world of light and imagination! In this hands-on shadow puppet workshop, kids will design and create their own shadow puppets, then bring them to life using light, movement, and storytelling. Participants will explore simple puppet-making techniques, experiment with shadows and silhouettes, and collaborate to invent characters and short scenes with our very own shadow stage. The workshop encourages creativity, problem-solving, and playful performance.  Session IV | Mixed Media Mania  THIS SESSION IS FULL. WAIT LIST ONLY July 13-17 9:00 am-3:00 pm | Ages 6-8 Instructor:  Grace Haley Cost: $250 Let’s get to the basics! Art can be made out of almost anything. Campers will explore a variety of mediums and learn to use them to create 2D and 3D artworks. Each day we will focus on a new way of artmaking, including painting, sculpture, collage, printmaking, and more. Different media we will explore include graphite, charcoal, watercolor, acrylic, and clay. On the final day, young artists will combine their skills and materials to create mixed media masterpieces! Each camper will have a diverse portfolio to take home at the end of the week. Session V | Mini Masterpieces July 27-31 9:00 am-3:00 pm | Ages 6-8 Instructor:  Grace Haley Cost: $250 Masterpieces come in all shapes, sizes, and materials. Our young artists will learn about the works of famous artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, and more. We will also take a day to learn about local Chattanooga artists.  Campers will take what they learned about the styles and materials of the artists and make their own masterpieces.  Painting, sculpture, drawing, and collage will all be explored, and a colorful portfolio will be ready to take home at the end of the week! About our Instructors: Hollie Chastain Hollie Chastain is an artist and illustrator living and working in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After starting a career in graphic design, she moved back into studio work in 2007, choosing collage as a medium. Using mainly paper, she combines found images with modern colors and compositions to create work full of originality and narrative. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in private collections around the world with illustration clients including Warner Music, Smithsonian Magazine, Penguin Random House and the Oxford American.  She has several years of experience teaching in a K-5th after-school art program at CSAS. After teaching adults across the country for several years, she is excited to have some young minds in class again! Grace Haley Grace Haley is a local artist and oil painter based in Chattanooga, TN. She creates work based on Appalachian culture and landscape. Grace also works as studio manager for Townsend Atelier. She enjoys working alongside the instructors at the atelier and learning from all the artists who come through the studio. In her free time she is often hiking, reading, or playing with her dog.