Meet our teaching artists
Mildred Hankinson
Mildred Hankinson is an artist and instructor from San Francisco, CA. She studied fine art and illustration at the Academy of Art University, and has taught drawing and painting throughout the Bay Area for over a decade. Her work has been featured in multiple publications as both an illustrator and contributing artist.
Calvin Lai
Moving from where he grew up in Los Angeles to San Francisco, Calvin Lai studied drawing and printmaking at San Francisco State University, and then in 2008, he enrolled in the Academy of Art for illustration. Calvin works as a full time oil painter and he is currently on the faculty at the California College of the Arts.
Alex Rosmarin
Alex Rosmarin is an artist from Oakland, California. He studied painting at CCAC in the nineties, and has since continued painting, drawing, printmaking, showing, and teaching. He is involved in working from the live model, and from imagination, and is interested in how the two modes are both different and complementary. He has been keeping sketch books as a daily practice since childhood.
Dean Stuart
Dean is an author and illustrator who's been published in Boom! comics, Darkhorse, and Penguin Random House. His most recent work is the award winning graphic novel 'Cassi and the House of Memories'. Dean is also a gallery artist and has shown his work in Portland, New York, San Francisco, and Oakland. Dean works out of his studio at Helvella Art in Oakland.
Felicia Forte
Felicia attended the Art Students League of New York in 2006, moving next to San Francisco, Ca where she began her career as a private instructor of painting and a fine artist. She has worked full time as an artist since 2010, exhibiting in many shows nationally and internationally including The BP Portrait Award in 2015 and 2018 for which she was awarded second prize. She has been featured in podcasts and publications including The Huffington Post, Dazed Magazine, and numerous articles in Artists & Illustrators Magazine UK 2020-2022. Felicia is a highly sought after teacher having taught at museums, schools and privately all over the globe. In 2017 she was invited as resident and grant recipient to the "Redbull House of Art" project in Detroit, Michigan. She currently maintains a studio in San Francisco, CA where she works and offers coaching remotely to private students.