Summer Arts classes in Staten Island

LIVINGSTON — For nearly all of its 35-year-plus history, the Art Lab has had South Shore expansion plans.

The long-running art school on the grounds of the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, easily accessible for North Shore residents, is a long way to travel for anyone who lives beyond the middle of the Island.

"People are forever asking us when we are going to branch out and head south, " said school director Malissa Priebe. "Well, here we go."

A new Art Lab South Shore satellite will open July 19 in Conference House Park, Hylan Boulevard, Tottenville, for a summer semester. While course offerings are modeled after the school's regular curriculum, they take the park's seaside environment into account.

The course for 3-to-5-year-olds, Children's Art and Nature, will teach kids how to draw and paint objects and scenes from the nearby natural world. "It's the perfect location, " a spokesman for the school said, "There are gardens, lawns and the seaside all within easy reach."

For five-to eight-year-olds, a class called "Children and Art" will use natural objects to develop skills in painting, clay sculpture and drawing .

"Origami Sculpture, " a course for students aged nine to 12, will use the traditional Japanese folded-paper technique to produce animal, plant, flower and shell forms. Teen-agers (13 to 17 years old)_ can study landscape composition (in pencil, charcoal and watercolor).

There are three courses for adults: Watercolor taught veteran Island artist Sal Busacca; "Fun with Drawing" taught by Connie Frisch-Cherniak, and Digital Landscape Photography taught by Steve Worth.