From contemporary visions of art education, teachers are encouraged to innovate, experiment and respond to current events. As teacher educators, we see that starting art teachers can find this exciting, especially in metropolitan schools. Pupil groups there consist of a wide variation in culture, economic status, language, religion and home situation (El Hadioui, 2022). A question that often concerns these teachers is: how do I keep control, while creating an open atmosphere? We find that existing theory on classroom management is mostly applicable to core subjects, and insufficiently focused on the arts subject. If a teacher wants to provide good and challenging art education, the group needs an inviting artistic atmosphere. In this, we can learn from artistic practices of artists and art teachers who play smoothly with the dynamics of diverse groups. With this research, we want to make visible valuable strategies from the artistic and educational field. So that we can equip starting art teachers with (artistic) skills to stand firm in a metropolitan classroom.