Now offering art classes

Alicia Garver has been teaching art classes in the Antelope Valley for 20 years. She is now teaching in Tehachapi at Slice of Life on Wednesdays. Her students have won county, state, and national art competitions. Eleven of her High School students have won the Congressional Art Competition and had their art hang in Congress for a year at a time representing California. Some of her high school students have won scholarships to the Academy of the Arts University (San Francisco) and Otis (LA).

Alicia Garver studied Fine Arts and Graphic Arts at Montgomery College (Maryland), Maryland U, Art Center College of Design (California) and got a Computer Graphics Degree at Antelope Valley College. She was a technical illustrator for Vitro Labs (Maryland) and Ocean Technology (California). She worked at Lockheed as a senior graphic artist for a number of years. On the job, she did paintings and drawings of aircraft, portrait, cartoons, 3-D display, logo design, brochure and book design, airbrush, inking, and more. She also freelanced and was a member of the San Fernando Valley Artist Guild. Garver has won numerous awards at work and in art competitions.

Alicia always planned to be a graphic artist. She never planned to teach. She was talked into teaching a teen daughter of a friend. The next thing she knew, there were 100 students coming for art lessons and 100 on the waiting list. She did not advertise. It was all word-of-mouth. She has taught ages nine years old thru 90 years old. But, no matter what the age, she is going to teach you as though you are in college. She says, "If you had told me years ago that kids could master adult skill levels in art, I would not have believed it. I've got middle school students that have portfolios that could beat out college art graduates. But, they started at 9 years old."

A lot of art teachers teach crafts, formulas, or just give assignments. She teaches you how to "see". Once you can see the way an artist sees you can draw anything. The reason most people can not do good art is because they "think" a drawing instead of "see" a drawing. The bad artist uses memory not sight. She explains that in class.

Each course is eight weeks (1 hour per week). There are 8 to 10 people max in a class. During the summer, She will offer a 5 day DRAWING crash course, where you attend 5 days in a row (2 hours each day). Courses are $150 and include materials needed. Classes are taught at "Slice of Life" 48771 West Valley Blvd., Tehachapi, CA. Call (661) 733-7409 ask for Susan Minor.

Some of the courses Garver teaches: Beginning Drawing, Techniques in Illustration (using pen and ink), Color Pencil, Portrait 1 (graphite), Portrait 2 (color pencil), Water Color, Mix Media, Design, Coffee Painting, Paper Collage, Crayola Crayons with Water Color, Pen and Ink with Water Color, and Juxtaposition.