Get crafty: Five creative workshops to try in Dubai
Whether you want to learn a new skill or just enjoy getting your hands dirty, here are a few of our favourite creative workshops and classes around Dubai.
Print yourself happy
Every month, Toil & Tinker’s new print and design studio in Al Quoz holds a series of workshops from pattern printing sessions to special Risograph printing classes. Popular in the 1980s, the Risograph was a high-speed digital printing system manufactured in Japan and initially designed for business printing purposes.
Like screen-printing, it’s all about layering colours by using a bulky printer to punch the colours on to several sheets of paper in quick succession.
It sounds complicated, but illustrator and artist Andrew Thorpe and the Toil & Tinker gang are on hand to help as you create your own two-colour A3 print. The options are endless – patterns, cartoons, pop art portraits and more. Just make sure you go with some ideas.
Warehouse 4, The Courtyard, Al Quoz, Dubai, Sat 2pm to 5pm, Dhs200. Tel: (04) 3410977. Taxi: Lime Tree Café, Al Quoz. toilandtinker.com
Become a pottery pro
Members can wander in and out of Yadawei, the smart new ceramic studio in Al Quoz, whenever they’re feeling creative. But if you’re clueless about clay you can master the potter’s wheel at the basic wheel throwing weekly workshops.
Over four sessions, teacher Naseem Kapasi goes through the steps, from wedging and centring your clay to trimming and glazing, until you’re left with a handmade pot to call your own.
You’ll be finding clay under your nails for days, but that’s all part of the fun. Members must pay for their clay, which costs Dhs85 for 12kg.
Eighth Street, Al Quoz, Dubai, Sat 5pm to 7pm, Dhs670. Tel: (04) 3791312. Taxi: opposite Alserkal Avenue. yadawei.net
More to try:
Go with the flow: Dubai’s top yoga studios
Make goats’ cheese churros with Jason Atherton
Inside Flip Out Dubai, the region’s biggest trampoline park
Whip up a three-course meal
Head up the stairs of Culinary Boutique – the new chic restaurant on Jumeirah Road – and you’ll find two fully chromed kitchens that wouldn’t look out of place on a Saturday morning cookery show.
It’s in these gleaming rooms that the team run their ever-changing schedule of cookery classes, helping Nigella Lawson wannabes to whip up a gorgeous meal.
Get ready to master a few culinary skills with a two-hour class where you’ll create three dishes, from steak tartare at the ‘steak master’ classes to the perfect pumpkin risotto at ‘tres risotto’. You can also learn the secrets behind local cuisine at the ‘authentic Emirati’ class. Other workshops focus on global cuisines from Japanese sushi to Peruvian delicacies, as well as healthy bites and paleo-friendly recipes. There’s even a Thursday evening ‘girls’ night out’ session that’s good for big groups, as well as classes for young aspiring chefs.
Villa 56, Jumeirah Beach Road, Jumeirah 1, Dubai, daily 8am to 10pm, Dhs295 to Dhs475. Tel: (04) 3450023. Taxi: just before Dubai Zoo. culinaryboutique.com
Paint a masterpiece (or at least try to)
We Love Art offers twice-monthly painting workshops and drawing classes inside a private studio in the Media One Hotel and The Oberoi.
Run by artist and model Denise Schmitz, the price of the workshop includes three drinks, which you can enjoy while (trying) to paint masterpieces such as Dali’s The Persistence Of Memory and Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. But don’t worry; while it’s not exactly paint-by-numbers, you start off with a pre-sketched drawing, leaving you to concentrate on putting paintbrush to canvas.
June 7 and 21
Media One Hotel, Media City, Dubai, 7.30pm to 10.30pm, Dhs369. Tel: (056) 7691995. Metro: Nakheel. weloveart.ae
Master your knitting skills
Embrace the knitter in you with this four-part beginners’ knitting course at Craftland.
The small but mighty Jumeirah Road arts and crafts shop runs a packed schedule of classes, from quilt-making to sewing and crochet.
In the weekly knitting classes you cover all the basics you need to know such as casting on, casting off and the classic stitches.
The small and friendly classes are meant for those completely new to the knitting world, but if you’re feeling confident try your needlework at their intermediate class.
Town Centre, Jumeirah 1, Dubai, Mon 9.30am to 11am, Dhs345. Tel: (04) 3422237. Taxi: Town Centre. mycraftland.com
