La Cañada Elementary art instructor drawing a crowd with online lessons
Robin Torres has always believed in the healing power of art, but it took a pandemic for her to realize how cathartic a simple drawing lesson could be for children — and quite a few adults — forced to shelter in place.
The La Cañada Elementary School art specialist teaches art classes for some 700 students in transitional kindergarten through sixth grade, and to say she enjoys her work would be putting it mildly.
“I can’t express to you how much I love what I do,” she said in a recent interview. “I feel like it’s a gift I get to have every day — I love my students.”
Torres taught her last in-person class on March 13, the day before La Cañada Unified officials announced school campuses would close to help combat the spread of the novel coronavirus as students and teachers transitioned to distance learning.
Wanting to stay connected with the LCE community, the art teacher set up a studio in her La Crescenta home and began video recording drawing lessons to post on her YouTube channel “Art with Mrs. Torres.”
For a 57-year-old who self-identifies as “tech challenged,” going virtual took some real-life work.
“At first, I tried duct-taping my phone to a stack of books,” she recalled. “I was like, this is crazy pants, so I Googled ‘Is there such a thing as a camera in your computer?’ and found out I had camera in my MacBook — I never knew!”
Torres now posts lessons every few days and is working on an alphabet series of animal drawings she breaks down into steps to help children master form and composition. All budding artists need are pencils, erasers and blank paper.
La Cañada Elementary School third-grader Sarah Bell, who found herself missing weekly art lessons during the school’s closure, looks forward to Torres’ YouTube lessons. She likes that they let her go at her own pace and work without interruption.
“I’ve drawn all the ones she’s done so far,” Bell said, describing how she hangs each one up in her bedroom. “I technically have an art wall now.”
And Bell’s not the only one who likes the videos. Torres’ lessons are reaching a much wider audience now, as some 1,000 people check in at her YouTube channel.
Kids and parents are sharing their drawings of alligators, bears and chameleons on social media, and word is beginning to spread about adults using the videos to “meet up” and draw with friends from across the pandemic divide.
Torres, in turn, is sharing her own pictures with fans on Facebook, including a recent “chalk bomb” of inspirational art and phrases she made with friend Christine Marks on La Crescenta’s Boston Avenue underpass.
“I truly believe art can heal,” she said. “You can be in the saddest place and somebody can teach you to draw a silly alligator or a bear, and suddenly you think, ‘Hey, I did that.’”
Sarah’s mom, Deborah Bell, said the YouTube sessions have sparked in her daughter a new interest in art and creativity.
“We’re so grateful for Mrs. Torres,” she said. “She’s just an amazing ray of sunshine for all of us and we appreciate her efforts to bring art to the children — she is a kind soul.”
