VENTURA : Art Classes Also Teach Art of Selling

Patricia Robinson was indignant when she found out that her granddaughters’ Ventura elementary school, like most other schools in the state, couldn’t afford an art teacher.

So three years ago, she took on the job herself--for free. An accomplished artist herself, she now teaches an hour of art a week to all grades at Lincoln elementary school.

But drawing isn’t all she teaches. The children exhibit and sell their works to experience the financial side of art. Today from 6 to 7 p.m., more than 200 pieces of framed art will be offered for $10 to $17 at the school.

“They are getting the experience of what it’s like to be an artist--doing it, hanging it, seeing it sold or not seeing it sold,” Robinson said.

Robinson exhibits and sells her own work in Ventura County, Los Angeles, France and her native England. She describes herself as an English impressionist, doing primarily landscapes and portraits in oil.

She studied art seriously from the age of 12 in England. After World War II, she studied in London and Paris, later returning to London to teach at the Royal College of Art. While her children were growing up, she taught youngsters ages 8 to 18.

Robinson and her husband, Richard, moved to the United States 10 years ago and settled four years ago in the Ventura area, where her daughter lives.

“I was angry that in this so-called affluent society art was not being taught in the schools,” she said.

Robinson teaches seven classes a week at Lincoln, up from the three weekly classes she taught when she started. This week’s sale is the second one the school has held. Robinson scoured the city for donations of supplies such as frames. Green Thumb nursery loans her plants for the children to draw.

The children draw something different each week. It might be a plant, or a pile of boxes to learn perspective or a student model. They use pencil, watercolor, pastels and charcoal.

“They are being taught to register what they see,” she said. The students struggled with the concept for the first few weeks, she said, but by the fourth week “they were on to it.”

“What she’s really teaching is observation,” said Lincoln’s principal, Jeff Nelsen, who praised Robinson’s efforts.

He said Ventura schools have not had art teachers for 20 years. The children still have some instruction in crafts, and they learn art appreciation through a volunteer program.

“But without Pat, they wouldn’t learn to draw and focus on detail,” he said.

Some students out of every class show real talent, Robinson said. “That’s sufficient to make the project worthwhile for me.”