ARTIST LOVES TEACHING KIDS TO PAINT.Byline: VICTORIA GIRAUD Artist Susan Pierson loves to work with children. After a long career in the film industry in animation and matte painting Matte paintings are used to create "virtual sets" and "digital backlots". They can be used to create entire new sets, or to extend portions of an existing set. Traditional matte painting is done optically, by painting on top of a piece of glass to be composited with the original , Susan is fulfilling that love as art director and primary teacher at The Young Masters fine arts studio in Thousand Oaks Thousand Oaks, residential city (1990 pop. 104,352), Ventura co., S Calif., in a farm area; inc. 1964. Avocados, citrus, vegetables, strawberries, and nursery products are grown. . ``I love getting kids to paint. It's such a good feeling when it clicks and comes together as a picture,'' Susan enthused. She teaches all media - pen and ink executed or done with a pen and ink; as, a pen and ink sketch s>. See also: Pen , watercolor, oil and animation - to all ages, but most of her students are 3 to 18 years old. Under her direction, about 100 students from the school have created and painted 44-foot wide backdrops for a special Earth Day presentation April 22 at the Forum Theatre at the Civic Arts Plaza. They've painted three scenes: a forest, a city park and a residential street for the play ``Roxy the Recycling Robin and the Mystery of the Missing Trees,'' presented by Through Children's Eyes and produced by See Above Productions. Susan and her students have accumulated about 200 hours of volunteer time, but it's for a cause Susan believes in - protecting the environment. She and her husband, Jim, have created their own environmental family game - the Napsack Nature Game - being introduced this week by Artistic Images. Designed for play by any age, the game is made of natural, recycled products that are totally washable, and it teaches environmental respect. Besides teaching, Susan also devotes time to her own artwork, painting every day. ``There are easels in every room in my house,'' she said. She describes her work as impressionistic im·pres·sion·is·tic adj. 1. Of, relating to, or practicing impressionism. 2. Of, relating to, or predicated on impression as opposed to reason or fact: impressionistic memories of early childhood. with lots of texture and brush strokes Brush Strokes was an Esmonde and Larbey sitcom set in South London and depicting the (mostly) amorous adventures of a good-looking, wisecracking house painter, Jacko (Karl Howman). , a style she developed after beginning art as a small child. ``I was in art school from the time I was 4 or 5 years old. This school (The Young Masters) is very similar to one I went to.'' She believes starting art at a young age is the best way of developing talent. ``The younger the better. Probably the ideal is 6 years old. Teens are harder; they're already too critical of themselves.'' A San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. girl, Susan's parents and grandparents grandparents npl → abuelos mpl grandparents grand npl → grands-parents mpl grandparents grand npl opened and ran The Unique Delicatessen in Encino for a number of years, and later her mother ran The Golden Bull steak house, an early venue for Susan's paintings. She graduated from Birmingham High School Birmingham High School is a public coeducational high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of the city of Los Angeles, California. The school is a part of District One of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). , and thanks to a Disney scholarship presented by Walt Disney himself, attended Chouinard's (now California Institute of the Arts California Institute of the Arts known as CalArts U.S. private institution of higher learning in Valencia. Created in 1961 through the merger of two other art institutes, it was the first in the U.S. ), and later Otis Parsons Art Institute. Susan began work as a cartoonist before she was 20, and then spent about 20 years at almost every animation studio in town including Filmation and Hanna Barbera on a multitude of features: ``Charlotte's Web,'' ``Pink Panther,'' ``Yellow Submarine'' and ``The Flintstones'' were some of them. Susan went on to work as a matte painter at Universal Studios for eight years. She learned the most about art from Universal's Al Whitlock, whom she considers her mentor. Brought over from Pinewood pine·wood n. 1. The wood of the pine tree. 2. A forest of pines. Often used in the plural. Studios in England by Alfred Hitchcock, Whitlock received many awards for his work over the years and has several of his works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . ``I'd watch him paint for hours and hours,'' Susan said. `` `It's all tone and color. It's easy,' he'd say.'' Susan painted mattes - less expensive that actual location shots - for many feature films including: ``The Wiz,'' ``MacArthur,'' the ``Airport'' movies, ``The Heretic'' and Mel Brooks' ``High Anxiety.'' Besides fulfilling Susan's creative urges, art also has been an emotional release and comfort. ``Art really helps. With art you can work almost anything out and forget all your troubles.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Susan Pierson, left, and her husband, Jim, show theEarth Day game they created to their son, Jim, and Jim's friend Sean, far right. Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News |
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