Children’s art studio focuses on drawing and painting
Ethan Enz is a typical 9-year old boy.
He likes skateboarding and riding dirt bikes, and he has played
for the Hollister Vikings Pop Warner football team for three
years.
Children’s art studio focuses on drawing and painting
Ethan Enz is a typical 9-year old boy.
He likes skateboarding and riding dirt bikes, and he has played for the Hollister Vikings Pop Warner football team for three years.
But what he really likes to do is draw.
“I’ve been drawing for a really long time,” said Ethan, as he bent over his latest masterpiece, a sketch of a cylinder, in the tiny studio where he spends Thursday afternoons. “I like drawing lots of things, like skeletons or people or made up things. I like to use my mind to think up things to draw.”
Ethan attends an art class at the San Benito Street Studio Art Academy, a new art studio specializing in children’s art classes. Owner and teacher Evelyn Pogrowski, a retired preschool teacher who has had a studio in Aromas for eight years, says she wanted to create a place where children felt comfortable learning different art techniques – specifically drawing, painting and calligraphy.
“Ethan has been asking about an art class, but anything I could find was held in Gilroy,” Karrie Sims, Ethan’s mother, said. “I walked into this on accident, and when I told Ethan, he was very excited. I think it’s great, because he’s one of five kids, and this is the only thing he does independently of the others and its important he be able to express his individuality.”
Pogrowski offers a variety of classes, such as Teen Tuesdays (geared towards high school students), Girls’ Gallery (girls ages 7-11), Boys’ Art Studio (boys ages 7-11), Women’s Wednesdays, Beginning Calligraphy, Children’s Handwriting and even a preschool class for toddlers called “Rainbows, Stars and Mommies: Mommie’s Doing Art with Me.”
An artist in her own right who specializes in oils, Pogrowski said she came up with the idea for a children’s art studio after attending a community forum sponsored by First 5 San Benito, which administers health and childcare programs from prenatal through age 5 funded with Proposition 10 monies. The forum was to get local agencies to collaborate in order to ensure renewed funding, but Pogrowski left the meeting realizing there were no art programs available for Hollister children.
“I had three mothers tell me that,” Pogrowski said. “Then on a rainy day in February, I was driving down San Benito Street and I saw a little house with space for rent. I went in and got myself a large space.”
The studio is set up to encourage young artists. The walls are covered with the students’ work, as well as a vocabulary list containing art-related words which the children learn during class. Music fills the room – during Ethan’s class, “The Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd can be heard in the background, and students are invited to bring in their favorite music. A large table takes up much of the room, and caddies filled with pastels, chalk, pencils and charcoal sit on top of it.
“A studio is a working room. It’s a place for the execution and study of art,” Pogrowski said. “I am providing a place and time for us to be artists.”
Classes are held in six-week sessions; cost is $20 per class and each class is approximately 75 minutes long and limited to four students. Pogrowski also offers semi-private (two students; $120 per six week session) and private ($150 per six week session) and a studio sampler ($40 per person), where students can go twice in a month to get an idea of what the class is like. Family discounts are available, and Pogrowski provides all materials needed in class.
Her classes deal in specific subjects – one class, for example, dealt with spheres. Pogrowski taught her students to make “a perfect circle,” and drawings of baseballs hang in one corner of the room.
“All of my courses are based on academics,” she said. “My students are always learning and the classes meet the primary needs of the ages of my students. We touch on geometry. Art is the basis for math, and it helps with literature, cognitive growth. You can see art, and feel it.”
Her students agree.
“Look at fire,” David Werolin, 10, said. “You can see it, but you can’t touch it, and that makes it hard to draw. But (Pogrowski) taught us how and that’s cool.”
David attends class with his brother, JoJo, and his sister Alexandra hangs out sometimes as well. “They feel like a million bucks when they leave here,” their mother, Connie Werolin, said. “They get so much attention and they love what they do here. It’s awesome.”
David said he is happy to be learning so much about art, since he plans to keep drawing as he grows older.
“I was born an artist. I like what you can do with just a pencil,” he said. “Art may not always be a major thing in my life, but I’ll always draw. I love it.”
So does Pogrowski, who says operating an art studio is just “a big excuse to do art.”
“I like to color every day,” she said. “That’s my motto.”
The San Benito Street Studio Art Academy offers six-week sessions to different age groups. New courses begin this month, including “Fresh Floral/Botanical Drawing” on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. or 6 p.m. For a complete course schedule, tuition rates or more information, call Evelyn Pogrowski at 726-4004. The studio is located at 890 San Benito St.
