INTRICATE ART PROFESSOR SHARES KNOWLEDGE, LIFE.

Byline: Paul O'Donoghue Staff Writer

MOORPARK - A chance encounter with an art professor at the Denny's restaurant where Donna Hanover works as a waitresses inspired her.

Hanover, who has painted and illustrated since she was a child, was amazed at the beauty of some Thanksgiving-themed pictures by Moorpark College art professor Sol Dember, an occasional customer at the restaurant.

``Sol was showing his paintings to one of the customers, and I thought they were wonderful,'' said Hanover, 62, who works part time.

``I said, my God, you've done that with an airbrush? And he introduced himself, and I said that his work was wonderful. We talked for a while and he said take the class, and I said I would.''

That was a few years ago, and since then Hanover, who had worked for 10 years for the Simi Valley School District as an illustrator before retiring in 1981, has taken several of Dember's evening classes.

Dember's class on airbrush technique is the only one taught in the county's three community colleges, said Eva Conrad, executive vice president for student learning at Moorpark College.

``One of the things that's unique about the course is that it's taught by a faculty member who's got such a connection to the outside world and business where he's worked,'' Conrad said.

``Sol's got a foot in both worlds, and that's what makes it really unique,'' Conrad said.

This semester, Hanover, who is a great grandmother and takes care of her 93-year-old mother, is taking another of Dember's classes, animation background, where she is learning to do intricate backgrounds that can later be scanned into computers to create animated cartoons.

The students taking Dember's classes range in age from those of Hanover's generation to high school students. Some - such as Hanover - are doing it for pleasure and others because they would like to become animators.

``Basically they're doing a portfolio so they can hit DreamWorks or any of the other studios, so when they go there the art director can see they know something, rather than just going in there blind,'' Dember said.

``It's not a guarantee they'll get a job, but it's a foot in the door.''

Dember said at least one of his former students has worked occasionally for Disneyland.

Dember teaches basic and advanced airbrush and animation background Thursday evenings at the college, where he has been a part-time professor for 14 years.

Hanover said that many computer-generated cartoons such as the hit Pokemon series have flat backgrounds in contrast to some of the older animated movies such as Disney's ``Beauty and the Beast,'' that have intricate backgrounds.

She said Dember teaches how to create those lush, detailed backgrounds, which computer technology still hasn't quite mastered.

``What we're doing there is background animation because the young people are so into computers, and they don't know how to create the backgrounds and pictures,'' Hanover said.

``That's why when you watch (older) TV (cartoons) they used to have character and, boy, now they're flat. Everything becomes flat, and I think it's because people have forgotten how to create backgrounds,'' she said.

Before working at Moorpark College, Dember taught at Los Angeles Pierce College, worked as an illustrator for Rocketdyne for 38 years creating conceptual pictures of spacecraft and and made propaganda posters for the Department of Defense during World War II.

``In my experience I have so many tricks of the trade,'' Dember said.

``I show (the students) different techniques to get different effects, like for instance using coarse salt on a watercolor (painting) when it's wet and when it dries you have a mottled look like it's raining, you know, instead of laboring over trying to put actual rain in.

``Coarse salt (used) in underwater scenes also gives you bubbles underwater,'' Dember said.

But it's not just Dember's experience and skills that makes the courses he teaches unique - it's also the price. The courses that he teaches at Moorpark College carry between 1 and 3 units, and the community college rate to students of $11 per unit makes its less expensive than some private art schools.

``Anywhere else it would cost you $3,000 to $4,000,'' Hanover said.

``For what they provide at Moorpark College you would pay a fortune. I couldn't afford to go if it weren't for Moorpark College,'' she said.

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Photo: Sol Dember, a professor at Moorpark College, stands in front of work created by his students.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News