By Marlene Bohnyak, Owner/Instructor
Reading and drawing has always been a complete pleasure and obsession for me as a child. It provided a place to escape and fantasize as I read the Madeline adventures with their incredibly charismatic illustrations of French culture. The style of Ludwig Bemelmmans’ illustrations was so stylized, energetic and exciting to my young eyes. I couldn’t wait to read the next book to see what kind of situation Madeline would be in next!
If I Were Going was my most memorable book of all in elementary school. It took me all over the world through its illustrations and descriptive paragraphs. Pen and ink with water-colored washes captivated and inspired my imagination. Later it was the Nancy Drew mysteries, Bobbsy Twins adventures and the like. As I grew older my interests grew broader as I consumed endless stories of animals: Lassie Go Home, Old Yeller and other classics. As paperbacks became more available, it lessened my trips to the library, and had more interestingand colorful covers with illustrations, lettering and other details to attract me. There was nothing I liked better than to crack open the first page of a book and smell the fresh ink and paper!
With these memories of creative writing and illustration, I have created our Cover 2 Cover classes. Students ages 7-12 learn to explore writing techniques and styles to tell their stories which will greatly improve their abilities, and carry over into their schoolwork. Using different mediums they will learn how to structure and create their artwork to complement and enhance their writings.
Fashion Illustration was my major at the High School of Art and Design, and my concentration at Pratt Institute. Loving illustration in general, I pursued fashion illustration as a potential career. Fashion dominates the media and is all around us. Many of our students wish to focus on this and so we have created our Fashion Design & Illustration classes.
Our instructor, Ms. Gail has been a dear friend of mine for over 45 years, (classmates in high school), and more importantly, had a long and successful career in fashion illustration in NYC.
Now semi-retired and still free-lancing, she has been at Artisan for the past two years inspiring our young ‘fashionistas’! Each week Ms. Gail shares her knowledge and passion for fashion as she inspires her students, ages 7-12. They learn about fabrics, patterns, color coordination and how to create outfits and accessories that are age appropriate, fun and beautiful! Using croquis, fabrics and trend boards, students get a hands-on experience and sampling of what fashion is all about.
Please visit us at artisanstudio9.com for more info about our other specialized and traditional classes!