Painting with Acrylics!

Painting with Acrylics! kicks off at the Austin Public Library Windsor Park Branch on Monday, August 10, at 5 PM. It's a three-week series that runs on Monday afternoons, and it's built for beginners: you come to learn basic acrylic painting techniques and leave with your own artwork. All supplies are provided, so you don't need to bring a thing.

Leading the sessions is Joseph Chen, an Austin native who grew up here and graduated from St. Michael's Academy. He's a self-taught artist, and his own work tends toward spiritual themes and symbolism, with Koi fish appearing often—a nod to both Asian and Latino cultures. He frequently sets opposing forces against each other, like life and death or good and evil, and describes painting as therapeutic, a way of taking notes on life and expressing a feeling of emergence.

The venue itself is the Windsor Park Branch, located at 5833 Westminster Dr. It opened on July 15, 2000, though library service to the area goes back further: bookmobile deliveries to the Windsor Village Shopping Center on Berkman Drive started in the late 1950s, followed by the Windsor Village Station in 1963. The permanent building came after a 1992 bond issue approved six new branches. Paul Bond's bronze sculpture Reading Between the Lions, part of the Austin Art in Public Places program, greets you at the entrance.

Since it's a three-week series, you'll be back on the following two Monday afternoons to keep working. The first session is August 10 at 5 PM at the Windsor Park Branch.