Choosing an art summer school in Europe can be an exciting way to build your creative skills while experiencing a more independent style of learning. Alongside practical studio work, you explore new ideas, work with university-level tools and techniques, and gain a clearer sense of what studying art at a higher level can really feel like.

Taking an art class at a college level gives you a huge head start by letting you step into the shoes of a real art student. You get hands-on with professional tools like digital design software, high-quality paints, and drafting tables to learn concepts like color matching, lighting, and how to frame a great picture.

Beyond just making art, you get a real taste of university life by working in college studios and learning how to take helpful, honest feedback from expert teachers during group reviews. This whole experience helps you build a strong portfolio of your best work and teaches you how to manage real college deadlines, giving you practical academic experience.

Why should teens attend a summer art school in Europe? 

Europe is an amazing place for teens to study art because the entire continent is basically a giant, real-life classroom. You can walk through world-famous museums like the Louvre in France or the Uffizi Gallery in Italy to see masterpieces right in front of you. The area is packed with famous art schools, like the University of the Arts London and the Beaux-Arts in Paris, which sit right in the middle of huge fashion and design industries. 

Additionally, because the countries are so close together, it is incredibly easy to take a short train ride to explore totally different cultures, historic buildings, and local art styles in a single weekend. Being surrounded by so much everyday history and endless creativity makes it the perfect spot to get inspired.

Below, we have listed 15 art summer schools in Europe for teens to help you get started.

For more subject opportunities, you can explore summer programs in Europe.

15 Art Summer Schools in Europe for Teens

1. International Summer School  –  University of the Arts London (UAL)

Location: London, UK
Cost: £3,670 (~$4,890); limited financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; 15-20 students
Dates: July 6-24; July 27th – August 14th
Application Deadline: Rolling basis until full
Eligibility: Students around the globe aged 16-18 with an interest in art and design; open to international students

At this art summer school in Europe, you work on projects that develop your practical skills and help you create a collection of work that could contribute to a future portfolio. You have the opportunity to experiment with different materials and techniques, including drawing, collage, mark-making, design, and 3D modelling, guided by tutors who support personal exploration and creative thinking.

The course structure is influenced by foundation-level art studies but is adapted to give you practical experience and new ways to approach your work.In addition to studio sessions, you participate in group discussions and receive feedback that helps you refine how you present and communicate your ideas.

Why it stands out: It places you in a real art school setting in one of the world’s most vibrant cultural cities, letting you build skills, connect with peers, and explore what art school life feels like

2. Immerse Education’s Fine & Digital Art Summer School

Location: University College London, London, UK
Cost: Varies; summer school scholarship available through our bursary programme
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Small class sizes; average of 7-10 participants per class
Dates: 2 weeks during the summer
Application Deadline: Multiple summer cohorts with rolling admissions
Eligibility: Students around the world aged 15-18; open to international students

The Fine & Digital Art Summer School by Immerse Education is a two-week art summer school in Europe for high school students interested in developing their artistic skills. You participate in studio workshops covering drawing, painting, sculpture, and digital media, while also learning to use industry-standard digital art software to expand your creative toolkit.

Through small-group coaching and discussions on art history, you work on individual projects that help you develop your own artistic style and build a portfolio. The program also includes visits to local galleries and museums, giving you the chance to see professional works up close and draw inspiration from a variety of artistic practices. 

Why it stands out: You get personalized mentorship and studio experience in one of the world’s most creatively vibrant cities while building work you can show in future applications.

3. Sacred Art School Firenze – Painting Summer Course

Location: Sacred Art School Firenze, Florence, Tuscany, IT
Cost: €2,500 (~$2,886)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; minimum 5 students to activate
Dates: July 6 -31; August 17th – September 11th
Application Deadline: Rolling basis until full
Eligibility: All high school students; open to international students

In this program, you initially learn simple shapes and progress to complex ones, a methodology that represents reality with precision and authenticity. The total instruction spans 108 hours taught in Italian and English. Still lifes introduce basics like light-shadow, proportions, tonal masses, color mixing, and brushwork. Drapery studies build on this, emphasizing hot-cold halftones and expressive brush use for accurate portrayal.

The composition project applies prior skills to traditional figure representation in a complex painting. The course ends with a themed project. You enrich your experience through weekly visits to Florence’s museums and churches, studying art history via works of Florentine masters and their historical and social contexts.

Why it stands out: It integrates weekly museum and church visits into the curriculum, providing a holistic, artful experience.

4. RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts – Creative Summer Camp

Location: RUFA, Via Benaco 2 & Via Degli Ausoni 7/A, Rome, IT
Cost: €1,250 (~$1,443); discounts and fee reductions are available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Open enrollment; maximum 20 participants
Dates: First Session: June 22nd –  July 3rd; Second Session: July 6-17
Application Deadline: Rolling basis until full
Eligibility: Young international and Italian students; B1/B2 English level; open to international students

This two-week on-campus program taught in English includes drawing lessons that introduce art, gesture drawing, and human figure composition. Painting covers materials, techniques, image simplification, and abstract synthesis. Design addresses sustainability through lab activities, building three-dimensional, futuristic cities tied to personal identities.

Photography introduces language, techniques, light management, form composition, content meaning, and storytelling via outdoor exercises, culminating in a digital portfolio of Rome. History of art, design, and Italian style features experiential visits to Rome’s museums, monuments, craft shops, and street-food spots, with RUFA covering museum tickets. 

Why it stands out: It includes guided city tours with covered museum entry and a multi-disciplinary structure across two sessions.

5. Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts

Location: Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Untersberg Quarry, Salzburg, Austria
Cost: €100 non-refundable enrolment fee plus course tuition (varies by course)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; roughly 15 students per course
Dates: Vary by course (Between July 19th and August 29th)
Application Deadline: May 1st
Eligibility: All high school students; open to international students

In this program, you will study many different topics, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, film, sound, performance, architecture, and art writing. Your daily activities will include taking hands-on workshops, going to lunch talks with professional creators, and joining group discussions about the artwork.

The program’s most unique features are its beautiful location in an old fortress and its historic goal to be a “School of Seeing” that welcomes all skill levels. By the end, you will learn new technical skills in your chosen art form, improve your critical thinking, and understand how to talk about modern art.

Why it stands out: It is the oldest summer art academy in Europe and gives beginners the rare chance to create art right alongside world-class professionals.

6. Les Tapies Visual Art Summer Programs

Location: Les Tapies, Puyricard, FR
Cost: €6,100
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; approximately 35 students per session
Dates: July 4-25
Application Deadline: Rolling basis (First-come, first-served)
Eligibility: High school students​ aged 13-18; open to international students

The Les Tapies Visual Art Summer Program is an intensive, three-week art summer school in Europe located in a restored 17th-century hamlet in the Ardèche region of Southern France. It is designed for artistically inclined high school students who wish to develop their portfolios in a communal, “atelier-style” environment.

You will spend significant time outdoors using the surrounding French countryside as your studio, practicing “en plein air” techniques to capture natural light and topography through charcoal or oil paints. You use full art studio facilities to build a portfolio, and its programs draw on Provence’s artistic heritage, light, and landscape. Excursions include full days to Aix-en-Provence, Cezanne’s home. You generate impressive portfolio work over the session. 

Why it stands out: It enables portfolio development in a restored hamlet with excursions.

7. UdK Berlin Writing – Design Workshop

Location: UdK Berlin, Berlin, DE
Cost: €690; discounts are available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; minimum 10 and maximum 12 participants
Dates: June 1-5
Application Deadline: May 3rd
Eligibility: All high school students; 18+; open to international students

This five-day workshop focuses on creative writing as a design tool for artists and visual thinkers. Day 1 involves group introductions, expectations, and initial exercises in description and self-presentation. Day 2 covers text essentials via lecture and exercises on headlines, hierarchy, and structure.  Elements addressed include overcoming blank page fear, editing, headline functions, reader guidance, target groups, and verbal styles.

Day 3 features a designer’s perspective lecture followed by practice in style, tonality, and text lengths. Day 4 dedicates half a day to reflecting on personal verbal style and reworking prior exercises. Day 5 culminates in presentations of your authorship work, receiving group feedback on audience reach.

Why it stands out: The program features daily progression from exercises to a final group presentation with instant feedback.

8. University of the Arts London Courses for Teenagers

Location: UAL colleges, London, GB​
Cost: Standard 1-week courses: Starting from £750; Intensive 3-week International Summer Schools: Starting from £3,670; Online courses: Typically range from £450 to £600; limited financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: First-come, first-served; typically 15-20 students per class
Dates: Summer (June – September in staggered 1-week, 2-week, and 3-week blocks
Application Deadline: Rolling basis
Eligibility: Students ages 11-15 and 16-18​; open to international students

The University of the Arts London (UAL) Courses for Teenagers are immersive, subject-specific programs held at world-leading institutions like Central Saint Martins and the London College of Fashion. You take fun, creative short courses, building practical skills in fine art, fashion design, film, and graphic design. You experiment with materials and techniques through hands-on projects like sketching, painting, pattern-making, and digital design.

Courses cover a wide subject range suited to beginners or those with experience. You receive guidance from expert tutors in studio settings. Led by industry practitioners, the programs allow students to work in the same high-spec studios used by UAL undergraduates.

Why it stands out: It offers teenagers rare access to the elite facilities and industry-connected faculty of six world-leading art colleges, allowing them to build professional-grade portfolios.

9. Gracia Art Academy Summer Camp

Location: Gracia Art Academy, Marbella, ES
Cost: €179 weekly; €128/week biweekly (€256 total); €109/week monthly (€436 total) ; materials included
Acceptance rate/cohort size: First-come, first-served; small cohort sizes
Dates: Multiple one-week blocks in July and August
Application Deadline: Rolling basis
Eligibility: Students ages 14-17; open to international students

This program includes an intensive drawing and illustration course split into two complementary weekly blocks. Week 1 suits beginners, teaching observation skills to transfer sights into sketchbooks through shape creation, shading, values, and tones for 3D effects using pencils of varying hardness, erasers, blenders, and sketchbooks with professional artist guidance and visual references.

You explore artistic and technical skills applicable personally, artistically, and professionally while discovering unique styles through new art forms. Week 2 builds on basics for those with experience, focusing on advanced shading, texturing, values, and strong 3D effects with charcoals, special papers, fixatives, plus all Level A materials. 

Why it stands out: It features two sequential levels from pencils to charcoal, with all materials provided.

10. TASIS Summer Programs – High School Program (HSP)

Location: TASIS The American School Switzerland, Lugano, CH
Cost: Session One: Boarding Student: CHF 10,100; Day Student: CHF 6,100 | Session Two: Boarding Student: CHF 8,600; Day Student: CHF 5,000
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; approximately 350-400 students for the High School Program per session
Dates: Session One: June 21st – July 16th; Session Two: July 19th – August 8th
Application Deadline: Rolling basis
Eligibility: Students ages 14-17; open to international students

In this program, you can select one academic art course for four hours daily alongside two afternoon sports/activities featuring Swiss, Italian, and French trips. In Digital Photography, you learn aesthetic properties using DSLR cameras and Adobe Creative Cloud, processing images during regional scenic shoots.

Filmmaking involves intensive units about screenwriting your original short script, on-screen acting basics, and a production lab to create a complete film. Musical Theater builds music, dance, and acting skills for an original production, including backstage roles. Architecture & Design (first session only) studies 19th and 20th-century architecture through slides/sketches/models.

Why it stands out: Its art courses culminate in Summer Arts Festival displays and include field trips to design sites.

11. Florence Academy of Art Drawing, Painting, History Part I

Location: Florence Academy of Art, Via Fratelli Bandiera 7r, Florence, IT
Cost: €4,250; limited financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: First-Come, first-Served; maximum 14 students
Dates: June 29th –  July 31st
Application Deadline: Rolling basis
Eligibility: Beginning ,  Intermediate , and  Advanced level students; open to international students

In this program, you engage in intensive studio practice introducing classical sight-size and academic drawing and painting methods through projects like old master drawing copies, figure drawing, cast drawing, still life, and portrait painting. Instruction involves using individual critiques and class demonstrations by faculty, including Director Hannah Sutton, Marco Franco, Saara Knapp, and Cameron Marsh.

You discover how Italian masters created universally significant works via precision training. You participate in four guided art history tours exploring Renaissance masters like Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Giotto, Masaccio, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Giambologna through works in principal museums, observing techniques like contrapposto, texture, and chromatics. 

Why it stands out: It involves guided museum tours to principal Florence sites and access to anatomy/art history lectures.

12. Barcelona Academy of Art – 5 Week Intensive Course

Location: Barcelona Academy of Art, Barcelona, ES
Cost: €2,603; limited financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; approximately 14 students per instructor
Dates: August 3rd  –  September 4th
Application Deadline: June 10th
Eligibility: All levels, including beginners; portfolio required for group placement; open to international students

In this program, you follow an intensive 5-week course in drawing and painting based on 19th-century academic methodologies of great masters, focusing entirely on the human figure, portrait, and live model work. You learn the Sight-Size method, rigorous observation training, analytical study procedures, chiaroscuro, tonal values, basic anatomy, gesture, and proportion for precise representation.

Painting instruction covers analytical study processes, Zorn and Velázquez reduced palettes with color mixtures, portrait strategies, landscape palettes, project development, and composition principles. The adapted full-time program hones observation skills and classical techniques through sequential exercises suited to your assessed level. 

Why it stands out: It completely focuses on the human figure/portrait with 19th-century master methodologies and requires a portfolio for level-appropriate grouping.

13. Florence Classical Arts Academy – Plein-Air & Portraiture

Location: Art Academy of Florence, Florence, IT
Cost: €1,900; discounts are available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; small cohort sizes
Dates: June 8th – July 3rd
Application Deadline: Rolling basis
Eligibility: Developing artists (beginners to advanced); applicants must submit a portfolio showing a strong interest in classical/figurative realism; open to international students

In this program, you participate in a four-week workshop split into two segments: the first two weeks on plein-air painting, the second two weeks on portraiture, joining the full-time student group with individual professor feedback. Plein-air focuses on perspective rules, proportions, a clean color palette, aerial perspective, applying cold/warm colors for subtle transitions, and mastering Alla Prima oil techniques for broader coloristic vision.

Portraiture covers canvas compositional arrangement, head proportions for big/small forms, anatomy analysis in drawing/painting, refining facial details like nose/eyes/lips, and developing coloristic/tonal vision to reveal the model’s physiological complexion and character. Museum tours, if organized, provide professional teacher guidance.

Why it stands out: It combines plein-air and portraiture segments with integration into full-time programs for 1-to-1 feedback.

14. School of Painting, St Ives, Summer Art Courses

Location: School of Painting, St Ives, Cornwall, GB
Cost: Varies by course; scholarships are available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: First-come, first-served; typically 12-15 students per workshop
Dates: 3-day courses in the summer
Application Deadline: Rolling basis
Eligibility: Sunday Kids Art Club (ages 7-10) and Porthmeor Art Collective (ages 11-16). Some advanced “Creative Weekender” courses are open to ages 16+; open to international students

In this program, you attend short studio-based art courses in historic ocean-view studios led by practicing artist tutors. It covers mediums such as mixed media, oil, acrylic, watercolor, drawing, pastel, ink, and printmaking in abstract, landscape, still life, figure, seascapes, and personal development. Capturing St Ives employs line and wash techniques for buildings, cottages, and streets.

Discover Painting II with acrylic loosens up practice toward confidence and expression. It also has Dynamic Landscape in Oil paintings en plein air on cliffs and beaches for intuitive expressions. Artist Retreat Weekend offers 1–1 tutorials and practical painting with professionals for those with an existing practice. Life drawing options are also available. 

Why it stands out: It features small classes in historic St Ives studios with practicing artist tutors.

15. ISSOS St Andrews Art Summer School Programme

Location: ISSOS, St Andrews, GB
Cost: £7,900; need and merit-based funding is available through specific partner organizations
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; maximum 150 students
Dates: June 28th – July 19th; July 22nd – August 12th
Application Deadline: Rolling basis
Eligibility: Students aged 13-18; open to international students

In this art summer school in Europe, led by professional working artists, you explore new techniques and refine existing skills through hands-on projects. Daily afternoon sessions cover classic line drawing, oil painting, modern sculpture, and cartoon illustration, and challenges such as portraits, original sculptures, or album covers.

You draw inspiration from St Andrews scenery, gallery visits in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and unexpected places to develop self-expression and a unique style. Your work culminates in a final art exhibition showcased to the entire summer school community. You join students from over 100 nationalities, with nationalities capped at 10% intake. Evening activities and cultural trips complement the balanced program.

Why it stands out: It features a final art exhibition for all participants and integrated gallery visits.

From Studio Practice to Future Pathways

Studying art in a new setting can shift your perspective, pushing you to experiment more boldly, refine your voice, and see creativity as something lived.

That is what makes an art summer school in Europe especially memorable, combining studio practice, cultural immersion, and daily inspiration from world-famous galleries and cities.

The programmes listed here can also clarify what comes next, helping you connect artistic interests with future study options, creative industries, and possible careers ahead.

Explore our Career Exploration blogs to discover where art can lead, from design and curation to media and fashion, and start shaping possibilities.