Become a Casey K. Affiliate, and earn for referrals!
Become a Casey K. Affiliate, and earn for referrals!
Feel free to reach out with your questions or comments!
Casey outside the studio at a Casey K Creations Christmas party.
Hi! We are so happy to have you here visiting our site! If you are not familiar with us, we have a beautiful studio just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. We teach acrylic painting classes, sometimes oils, paint-your-own-pottery, watercolors, drawing classes, mosaics, glass etching, art camps, workshops, field trips, etc. In the past few years, we have taught thousands of people to paint and I love every minute of it. What I do is create paintings that look very detailed and break them down into simple steps, so even a brand new painter that hasn’t even picked up a brush before can create my paintings. AND love them and want to hang them on their wall. I am overjoyed in the studio and with our members online seeing the beautiful work they are creating. AND how happy it makes them. Art is therapy! That’s for sure!
I couldn’t feel more blessed getting to work with such kind, amazing people every day. I am extremely grateful for our team and all of our painters and members. It’s truly a dream come true. It’s not all about the painting, it’s also about the feeling of being lifted up with like-minded people and doing something for YOU. Taking time for you, doing something you enjoy.
I am so pleased with the decision to start our online membership after the year of Covid. We truly felt there was a need for the online tutorials and memberships. And to also offer to license our designs to people in the paint party business or individuals looking to start to have paint parties (licenses for HQ Members Only). It gives them so much more time to build their business, not having to design and being stretched so thin. This is where we have met and built relationships with amazing people all over the country! I am so thankful for them!
If you don’t know my story and how this all started, we would like to share it with you. It’s still something for all of us on our team to look at how this all came to fruition. Truly a blessing.
My son was battling an illness starting around seven years old where he had masses throughout his spine. The whole situation for four years was so scary and traumatizing and I still probably couldn’t even talk about it until the past year or so without crying! He is in high school now and doing well outside lots of metal in his back and we are forever grateful.
During the time Boyd was battling his illness, a good friend of mine mentioned to me that maybe I should start painting or drawing in order to relieve some of my stress. We were either in the hospital or home health care for so long. So I started sketching people’s children in order to thank them for helping us through such a difficult time.
As my son started getting better, I drew another good friend’s children who happened to be a teacher at a local Christian Academy. She had asked me to come into a school where she teaches to teach their children. I LOVED every minute and posted the photos on Facebook. From there, we had other schools asking me to come in and do the same.
The early days painting in the home studio.
Before you knew it, we had students that wanted to paint with me as well at our home studio. And within a month or so, we had so many children on the waitlist, we had to find space to accommodate them. We had such a wonderful time at the home studio and some of the students that painted with me there are still with me today as members of my staff helping to teach others to paint today. They are like my children. It’s crazy to see all the children grow up before your eyes!
I was told of a local church that used to have a school in it. I went to their board and asked to lease the space per class, as we were on a budget. We put everything into getting my son well and we didn’t have much to spare. They were so wonderful and did just that! We had our first Family Day classes and Art Camps and started leasing their big space that they used for weddings too and within a few months were having classes of 50-100 all the time.
In addition to teaching classes at the church, restaurants, wineries, YMCA’s, libraries, churches and schools started asking us to host paint parties at their facilities. It was a whirlwind time. At one point we think we did 78 days in a row where we hosted a painting event – sometimes more than one a day with large groups. We were tired to say the least. Still loving it and it was a bit surreal.
A local church that used to have a school in this space was our first “off site” studio.
It wasn’t long before the travel began to wear us down and we’d simply outgrown our church home. So we leased an 1800 square foot retail space that was connected to a sizable restaurant and bar that had a large room upstairs to hold big events.
As beautiful as the space was, we outgrew it very quickly. At the request of our painters we had added ceramic painting to our offerings and we simply didn’t have enough storage and floor space to accommodate everything.
Our first retail space – that we outgrew very quickly
And then COVID hit.
We pivoted. We looked at what our community needed and made decisions to accommodate their needs to stay at home.
They first needed art kits to do at home. The response to the take-home ceramic painting kits and acrylic painting kits was wonderful, and it felt good to be able to serve our customers and community in such unprecedented time.
We decided to start filming our tutorials to offer more to enjoy at home. So we started to do virtual painting classes from the studio. The response to this was amazing and that was where the idea for Casey K Headquarters was born.
When the everything started opening back up from the Covid lockdowns, we had to space all customers 6 feet apart. Well, we couldn’t do near what we needed to with our previous retail space. So, we initially decided to keep the pottery at the retail space and I contacted the owners of a large, 13,000 space down the road that they were selling due to retirement. I asked them if we can lease their space through our busy season for painting classes until the restrictions let up. Once we were in their updating it, people kept filling it up and four months later, everything was moved there and it became our permanent “Happy Place.” The space is truly perfect for us.
Casey K Creations and now Casey K HQ is a true team effort. The company bears my name, but without my team I, we could not do all of this for our community and online community. I am blessed with a truly special team that puts their heart and soul into teaching our students. I’m truly grateful every day.
I said in the video that I’m so lucky because I’m truly blessed to do what I love every single day. It’s not just about the painting – it’s having the opportunity to lift people up every day, every class and being surrounded by a team that feels the same way.
xoxo
Casey
