Things to Do in Texas

Abrakadoodle's Art Education programs juice childlike creativity with the natural steroids of art, color, form, and design. Year-round classes include everything from Twoosy Doodlers for children ages 20 to 36 months to Doodlers for more advanced artists (grades K–8). Specialty classes help kids master the basics of anime, work with canvas painting, capture the horrors of war in sweeping cubist murals, and much more. Courses are offered at a variety of locations and times. View the schedule, course descriptions, and additional information here.

Painting with Patience hosts relaxing do-it-yourself evenings of colorful exploration for painters with or without previous experience. Guests need only bring a lust for life along with their favorite wine and snacks, as they uncork and follow a progression of easy-to-follow instructions. Each class focuses on one specific design, allowing students to follow along with others while adding their own flair to images such as gnomes or Italian waterways. Students can create their own simulacra of famous works including Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Munch’s The Scream, and Monet’s Bridge Over a Pond of Water Moccasins. Multiple classes are scheduled each week and include all painting supplies as well as ice buckets and corkscrews. The artistic educators at Painting with Patience can also wrangle groups of 10–25 artisans for adult or children’s private painting parties.

Leafy trees throw cooling shade over Sleepy Sheep Ranch’s zigzagging trails as horseback riders and their steeds trot past ponds and trickling creeks. When not escorting riders around the ranch’s maze of riding trails, resident horses and their goat companions frolic in a sprawling pasture, where both experienced and fledgling equestrians can saddle up their own horses or those that live at the ranch. Sleepy Sheep Ranch provides board and care for local equines whose owners don’t have the space and for local mustangs lying low after losing a road race to a golf cart. Serious riders can peruse a for-sale selection of livestock, which includes a handful of stallions and boisterous goats whose iron stomachs allow them to eat not only their own share of food, but the horses’ and compost bins’ as well.