Have you ever watched someone drawing, painting or sketching and wished you could, too? Artist and teacher Carrie Eason will show you how in her art classes for kids through grade 6 and adults.

Classes will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning January 3 in the upstairs Community Room at the Boothbay Region YMCA that overlooks the pool. Classes are $40 for members and $60 for non-members. All materials will be provided.

“My idea is to get people to love art,” Eason said. “I love art. I love the process and how it makes you feel. I want them to not be afraid of it and how awesome they can be with a few simple instructions.”

Eason began taking art lessons when she was in middle school with the late scenic painter David Armstrong (her best friend's dad) who worked in watercolor and oil.  

Eason took art classes in college, but wanted to blend art and mathematics and earned a bachelor of science in landscape architecture from Penn State. Eason is a seasoned portrait and scenic artist. She was a landscape architect until her own children came along.

Eason's art classes

In her first-ever adult class, Eason will be teaching students to draw with pencil, then to paint subjects with acrylics. Students will learn about negative space and drawing upside down as well.

Students in grades three through six will discover art through a variety of activities.

Grades Kindergarten through second will explore patterns and 3-D art. Think M.C. Escher. Activities for these little ones include making a cube with four different patterns, creating optical illusions. Eason will be incorporating a bit of Zentangle (yoga for the mind) said Eason.

Introduction of the color wheel is on the drawing table for the preschool set. These youngsters will work with Tempra paints and create simple projects that incorporate items from home.

“If someone brings a baby, they can even do hand prints, finger prints, nose prints that the mother or father makes art around with Tempra paints,” Eason said. “We might even do an edible art class some day.”

One project Eason has done with young children is learning about color mixing using icing that is used to decorate Vanilla Wafers. Once the wafers are decorated, it's snack time.

Before relocating to East Boothbay in late September 2012, Eason taught art classes (including edible art) to kids after school in her home in Kennett Square outside Philadelphia.

“I've always done art based on my kids' ages since they were babies. It started when I had my son, Alex, and my friends had kids. Everyone would come over and have fun with art,” Eason said. “I had the idea to do the same thing here, I just didn't know when.”

A tour of the new YMCA from Meagan Hamblett, Membership, Marketing & Child Enrichment Director, led Eason to art classes. Hamblett told Eason about the Y Arts programs, which range from dance to musical theater to improv to acting.

“For years we have had a very successful YARTS program in the form of performing arts,”  Hamblett said. “We have wanted to extend our arts programming to include visual arts in a variety of forms.  

“Recently, Carrie and her family moved to Boothbay and have immersed themselves in the community and we connected.  It's a perfect fit.”

When planning the Y art classes, Eason, a realism artist with a brush stroke of impressionism,  looked back at everything she had done with her kids over the years for ideas. “I use them, and their friends, as my little experiments all the time.” Eason said.

Eason's husband, Rodney, is the new director of horticulture at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. The couple has four children: Alex, 11; twins Mia and Callan, seven, and Zoë, nine, and they live in East Boothbay.  

For more information on the new art classes at the Y, call 207-633-2855 or visit  www.brymca.org.