As it happened in many domains, artistic education has sought innovative and, at the same time, viable solutions to overcome the constraints caused by the current pandemic and be able to continue and maintain its specific educational activities. A case is represented by the Visual Arts Education with activities related to research, creation, communication and evaluation of the artistic works. During the pandemic the physical locations could no longer be used at their capacity, while the online 2D environments have proven to be limited against the artistic educational objectives. Motivated by this challenge, the authors explored alternative e-learning solutions directed to online 3D platforms, by leveraging their existing experience in performing certain educational scenarios in the field of archeology and arts within older 3D platforms. The current paper presents a modern Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) solution called "Creative Art-Studio", implemented on the Mozilla Hubs, a free web-based VR platform, for the use of PhD students and teachers from the National University of Arts (UNA Bucharest), as a blended-learning tool. This e-learning tool is intended to be complementary or, when needed, even an alternative to the face-to-face activities, thus supporting the concept of resilient education solutions. The technical factors considered were the current technological evolution of 3D virtual platforms, such as graphical capabilities of the current web browsers, seamless navigation, simultaneous presence of sufficient number of participants (circa 20) without a decrease in performance, existing authoring tools and the online repositories of 3D objects, available free or under the Creative Commons license. A group of doctoral students contributed to the creation of an attractive and engaging VLE, and others agreed to evaluate the usefulness of the VLE, such that the educational needs are met. The "Creative Art-Studio" VLE was created as a working tool for the PhD students of UNA Bucharest, designed mainly to encourage the exchange of experience and presentations regarding the stage of their process of elaboration of art works as well as the various methodological approaches of their artistic research. The VLE consists of the 3D simulation of an e-learning environment, resembling the physical one, i.e. lecture halls and workshops with display panels, designed both as private creation spaces for the usage of the PhD students, and as public spaces dedicated to meetings of PhD students, teachers or other interested persons. All these two types of spaces are connected within the VLE and navigation indications provided. The online virtual environment has been augmented with virtual narratives and guides, to facilitate the understanding of the artistic message, and hybridized with audio and video communication assets, that can be shared inside and outside the VLE. This paper provides details on the background research, the technical and educational solution, the results of the experimentation and evaluation with a group of PhD students and teachers within the Doctoral School of UNA Bucharest, as well as the research conclusions.

visual arts education, artistic research, blended learning, resilient education, VLE, online VR, guided tours