Experience Level: Beginner

Learn the foundational skills of watercolor at Beginning Watercolor on Tuesdays, Oct. 14 through Nov. 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. in The Studio.

 Instructor and former art educator Sally Walsh will walk students through new techniques each week to create paintings focusing on landscapes, flowers, fruit, glass and special effects.

 $65/person*. Registration will close Oct. 13 or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.

*Students should bring:
— 140 lb. watercolor paper pad (spiral bound is best)
— 16-color oval pan watercolor paint set (Students can choose to borrow a watercolor pallet and brushes for a $10 fee, which can be applied at registration).
— Minimum of three brushes with pointed bristles: large (No. 10-12), medium (No. 6-8) and small (No. 4-6)
— Pencil, clear ruler, kneaded eraser

(Students can borrow a watercolor pallet and brushes for a $10 fee, which can be applied at registration).

If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Sally Walsh is a retired art teacher from Richland Community College in Decatur. She has more than 30 years of teaching experience and has led previous art classes at Allerton.

Experience Level: Beginner-Intermediate

Continue your journey through watercolor at Intermediate Watercolor: Landscapes on Tuesdays, Oct. 14 through Nov. 4 from 1 to 3:30 p.m. in The Studio.

Aimed at those who completed the Beginning Watercolor class, instructor and former art educator Sally Walsh will teach students skills and techniques to further their watercolor art in this class that will focus on landscapes.

$65/person*. Registration will close Oct. 7 or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.

*Students should bring:
— 140 lb. watercolor paper pad (spiral bound is best)
— 16-color oval pan watercolor paint set (Students can choose to borrow a watercolor pallet and brushes for a $10 fee, which can be applied at registration).
— Minimum of three brushes with pointed bristles: large (No. 10-12), medium (No. 6-8) and small (No. 4-6)
— Pencil, clear ruler, kneaded eraser

If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Sally Walsh is a retired art teacher from Richland Community College in Decatur. She has more than 30 years of teaching experience and has led previous art classes at Allerton.

Experience Level: Beginner

Learn about the high-energy dances that dominated the early 20th century at Historical Dancing: Titanic to the Talkies on Tuesdays, Sept. 23 through Oct. 28 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Mansion Library.

Instructor Jeanette Watts will help students explore the one step, castle walk, tango, foxtrot, Charleston, black bottom and other delights of early jazz.

In this era, the music was so infectious it required new kinds of dancing to go with it! Ragtime took over ballrooms with dances that shocked as well as delighted, while syncopated rhythms turned into the jazz of the Roaring Twenties. Meanwhile, Rudolph Valentino’s movie tango kept ballroom dancers like Irene and Vernon Castle popular.

$25/class (or $110/person for the entire series). Registration will close Sept. 21, two days prior to each class, or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.

If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email Olivia Bunting at owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Jeanette Watts has been teaching historical dances for more than 20 years. She is the founder of the Terpsichorean Delights Dance Assembly in Dayton, Ohio, Queen City Vintage Dance in Charlotte, North Carolina, and spent covid writing an 8-volume series of instructional dance manuals for historical museums.

Experience Level: All Levels

Create a sculpture out of just cardboard, paper and glue at Cardboard and Paper Sculptures on Thursday & Friday Oct. 16 & 17 2025 in the Greenhouse Auditorium.

In this class, Chicago-based artist Mary Seyfarth will cover design elements including form, scale, placement, color, and proportion and present tips, tricks and the means for each student to leave with their very own wildlife sculpture.

$95/person. Register here by Oct 2. All sales are final.

 If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email Olivia Bunting at owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Mary K. Seyfarth is the founder of MKS.Works, a visual arts studio in Wilmette that showcases a variety of sculptures of different materials. She first started working with ceramics in 1978 and it has been her life's work and passion since that time.

Experience Level: Beginner

Learn how to bring new life to an old lamp at Fix It! Basic Lamp Re-Wiring on Thursday, Oct. 16 from 4 to 6 p.m. in The Studio.

Instructor Lou Ann Koebel will lead students through changing out the plug, adding a switch and/or replace wiring in lamps. This hands-on course will cover basic electrical wiring.

$55/person*. Registration will close Oct. 13 or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.

* Students should bring:
— A lamp to work on 
— Wire cutter & stripper (example here)
— (optional) Black electrical tape and small retractable measuring tape 

If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email Olivia Bunting at owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Lou Ann Koebel currently leads a weekly dulcimer jam for the East Central Dulcimer Illinois Dulcimer Club at Lincoln Square. She also plays in a local band that visits and performs at local assisted living facilities.

Koebel has taught beginning dulcimer classes for The Farms, where she has had a wonderful time teaching the group and realized her love of teaching and passing on the tradition of playing a mountain dulcimer. Lou Ann also plays at area music festivals.

Experience Level: Beginner

Learn to make a beautiful hand-pieced and hand-stitched quilt from scraps of fabric at Quilting: Meditative Slow Stitching By Hand on Friday, Oct. 17 from 5 to 9 p.m. in The Studio.

Instructor Billie Theide will help students explore hand-piecing and hand-quilting a quilt in a unique way by stitching from the outside in. The class will also explore the rich cultural history of meditative slow stitching.

$120/person. Registration will close Oct. 10 or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.

Learn more about the space where your course will take place here. If you will need disability-related accommodations in order to participate, please email owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Billie Theide is a former chair of the Crafts Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she is Professor Emerita. Theide is a metalsmith, jeweler and ceramicist. Her work is in public art collections around the world including the Smithsonian, Museum of Arts & Design in New York City, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and the Racine Art Museum, among others.

She is the recipient of a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and five Artists Fellowship Grants from the Illinois Arts Council. Theide has been recognized for her excellence in teaching and is a Distinguished Member and Past-President of the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

Experience Level: Beginner

Learn to make your own soap at a Soap Making Demonstration on Saturday, Oct. 18 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the Greenhouse Auditorium.

Artist Sally Walsh will lead students through the process of making soap, including the science, safety, ingredients used and the herbal benefits. Students will take home a bar of soap in addition to a booklet of instructions and recipes.

$45/person*. Registration will close Oct. 11 or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.

*Students should wear old clothes.

If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email Olivia Bunting at owarren@illinois.edu.

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken.

About the instructor

Sally Walsh is a retired art teacher from Richland Community College in Decatur. She has more than 30 years of teaching experience and has led previous art classes at Allerton.

Experience Level: Beginner (Ages 21+) 

Make your own drink mixer from natural ingredients at Creating Cordials on Saturday, Oct. 18 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Greenhouse Auditorium. 

Instructor Heidi Leuszler will introduce students to three plants —  Elder (Sambucus Canadensis), Black Walnut (Juglas Nigra) and Black Currant (Ribes Nigrum) and discuss their natural, cultural and culinary histories. Students will then learn to prepare the ingredients into cordials to take home and mix with their preferred beverage to make a tasty refreshment! 

$95/person (Ages 21+). Registration will close Oct. 13 or when capacity is reached. All sales are final.  

Learn more about the space where your course will take place here. If you will need disability-related accommodations to participate, please email owarren@illinois.edu. 

By attending, you consent to your image being used in Allerton marketing, social media and publications. Please alert the photographer or videographer if you do not want your image taken. 

About the instructor 

Heidi Leuszler grew up harvesting and foraging wherever she lived: mangos in Florida, morels and mustang grapes from the back acre in Missouri, wild strawberries and holly grapes in the Colorado mountains and chokecherries in North Dakota. Those passions remained as she added culinary skills in addition to becoming a professor of environmental science, ecology and botany at Parkland College. 

She started Berries and Flour in Champaign as the synergy of several passions: culinary, ecology, growing of plants, foraging and teaching people about the plentiful Midwest land. Berries and Flour teaches how to harvest, process and consume regional foods, collaborates with others to promote food accessibility and justice, and produces value-added products from its commercial kitchen.