NEW ART ACADEMY AT SOUTHEAST HELPS TEACH YOUNG ARTISTS TO SEE

The director of a new art academy ast Southeast Missouri State University is hoping to provide affordable art education to people who have never put paint to paper before.

The academy is sponsored by the university and held at the university's art building.

Katherine Ellinger Smith, a part-time art instructor with Southeast and the academy's director, set her first class of teen-age art students to work Saturday sketching glass vases and bowls.

Smith said as the academy "matures and organizes" it will be adding ceramic and painting classes, workshops and classes for younger children.

"It's really for those people who've always wanted to get involved in art and they've been a little intimidated by taking a class at the university," she said.

The academy started with four drawing classes.

Smith's class is called "Drawing and Perceiving," and is open to 15- to 18-year-old students. The six-week course meets every Saturday. Even though all of her students have had art instruction before, Smith's class is designed for all levels of students.

She also teaches an adult class called "Drawing: The Light and Line of Form."

The classes are limited to 15 people so the teachers can work individually with students over the two-hour session.

Smith said the academy is a way of complementing the students' regular art instruction either at the university or in high school.

"We want to build on what they have and let them grow," she said.

After this first set of classes, Smith will be meeting with other organizers of the academy to discuss ways of improving their operation. Eventually, she said, she'd like to see the academy expand into the Bootheel and offer low-cost art education.

A few doors down from Smith's class, academy instructor Beth Thomas had her students learning to see the human form.

Thomas's class, "Portraits and Figure Drawing" is the most specialized of the four being taught. It is designed for students ages 12 to 14.

Thomas said she's going to have to evaluate each student's skill level, then try to get them to work as a group to bring out their talents. The students will be working with a clothed model through much of the course.

Thomas teaches kindergarten through fifth-grade art classes in Sikeston. She said drawing the human form is one of the most difficult endeavors in art.

A floor below Thomas and Smith in the art building, Brenda Seyer was teaching her students, the youngest of the three groups, to simply see in a different light.

Seyer's class, "Learning to See as an Artist," is for students ages 9 to 11.

"So often we draw what we know and not what we see," Seyer said. "An artist draws what he actually sees, which is different."

Seyer's students are using techniques such as "innocent vision," in which students will look at common objects like they've never seen them before, and squinting, which reduces an object down to light and dark areas.

Seyer said an artist needs a foundation in the basics to be able to develop into whatever kind of artist they want to be.

"It's a growing thing," she said. "We want to give children with artistic talent an opportunity to develop it. You have sports programs and music programs. We need an art program."