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“My daughter LOVES your camp! Itʻs the first one she asks for every year.”
~ Parent of an 8th grader, Summer Art Camp 2025
“My (now 11-year-old) daughter has attended Dancing Paintbrush Summer Camp for the last 3 years (several sessions each summer), and she will be there again this year. The studio is warm and welcoming, and the days are structured to support focused attention on art. The wonderful director, Beth, is a lifelong artist, a parent, and she cares about teaching art and making the days enjoyable for the students. This is a serious art immersion experience, not a typical arts-and-crafts camp.”
~ Parent of 5th grader, Summer Art Camp 2024.
“Our daughter enjoyed your camp so much and has requested to attend for more weeks next summer (which is big since she’s now in middle school and finding her interests are changing and aging her out if many of her previous favorite camps). She’s so into art-making (primarily drawing, painting, and sewing) and found your gorgeous garden, situated in an open studio environment and with expert artistic guidance, to be a pretty fantastic experience. Thank you for sharing your passion for art, your experience, and your kind, thoughtful way of working with youth with all our children!
And thanks for being an inspiring teacher! We’ll see you next summer!”
~ Parent of a sixth grader, Summer Art Camp 2023.
“Thanks so much, Beth. Our daughter LOVES Dancing Paintbrush – it’s one of the camps she simply WON’T miss every year. Looking forward to next year!
~ Parent of a seventh grader, Summer Art Camp 2023.
“I knew and admired Beth as an artist and human being for years before sending my 8-year-old daughter to her Dancing Paintbrush Studio Art Camp for the past few summers. Beth is an extraordinarily gifted professional artist (she’s a painter, photographer, and videographer) who is also, amazingly, a really gifted, inspiring, generous, and loving teacher of children. She loves teaching kids, and it shows. (She once volunteered to come to my daughter’s after-school garden class to instruct them in painting pictures of sunflowers, just for fun – a measure of her generous spirit.) She has taught art at the Crowden School and elsewhere and knows how to provide the right combination of structure, inspiration, great materials, helpful bits of art history, and celebration and encouragement of kids’ individual vision. She has been travelling the world for the past 2 years, working on an extraordinary art project that she can tell you about (!), and she comes home, I think, with even more inspiration and delight in the kids. Her studio is cozy and light-filled, and her sweet and mellow golden retriever, Chessie, provides fun companionship for the kids (she is also a very tolerant live model for their paintings!). My daughter loves art-making and loves her camp. I feel blessed to have Beth Hird and Dancing Paintbrush in our lives.”
~ Lori M.
I asked my daughter what she would like to say about Dancing Paintbrush, and she said, “It is a place where you can sit and relax and paint and not worry about other things. There aren’t very many rules, Beth is nice, they serve snacks including strawberries, and there is a dog named Chessie you can pet.”
~ Jill D.
“Both of my sons had a blast at Dancing Paintbrush Studio last summer. Beth Hird, the instructor, is an extremely talented artist and a wonderful, warm teacher. She has been teaching a wide variety of art forms for many years. She has a special way with children, and my younger son has continued to sketch and paint in his free time during the past year, thanks to his experience at Dancing Paintbrush Studio. My sons look forward to joining the camp again this summer.”
~ Tara
“Beth Hird is wonderful with kids and teens – calm, cheerful, and with a sense of humor, she has them engaged in all sorts of activities in a studio off Gilman. For those who love to paint, draw, and create in a dedicated environment. My daughter has loved the freedom as well as the expert instruction, and it’s a nice, relaxed scene.”
~ Jenny
“My daughter has loved Dancing Paintbrush Art Camp for the last 3 summers – she is 8 years old now and usually goes for 2-3 weeks each summer. The studio is on Gilman, right off I-80, so it’s easy to get to. Beth is a wonderful art teacher and is one of those people that kids gravitate to. The atmosphere is relaxed, with not more than 7-8 kids per day, all ages together, age 5 to 14 or so. My daughter has learned so much, even without a super obvious structure, just lots of ideas and freedom to explore all the art supplies! They do outings to the vivarium, parks, and other active spots, but most of the focus is on art (and rolling around with the sweet golden retriever!). It’s really a beautiful sunny place, and I’m so glad to know that my daughter is being taught and inspired in a setting that still preserves that ‘summer-time feeling’.”
~ Lisa
Private Lessons:
“I studied with Beth Hird for 4 months. We met on weekends at her very charming studio on Gilman, next to the tracks. I came into the lessons having drawn since I was a child, but with no real painting experience. Beth’s lessons provided a solid introduction to the fundamentals of working with color and handling paint, from choosing colors to mixing techniques to brushwork and beyond. When I started with Beth, I was preparing to enter my first year of college art education. I would have been sorely underprepared for classes dealing with color had I not worked with Beth. I feel that after spending a little over a summer with Beth, I was at no disadvantage in keeping up in my color theory and design classes compared with students who had been painting for years. More importantly, time spent with Beth allowed me to form a social relationship with a professional artist. Beth and I spent many sessions exploring what art meant to us through her lessons and in conversation, and she consistently shared useful, insightful, and meaningful ideas and experiences with me. Beth is not just a professional painter and highly educated fine artist; she is a traveled, down-to-earth, knowledgeable, insightful, caring person. Beth is for real. I would recommend college to someone who wants to (try to) make money from their work. I would recommend Beth Hird to someone wanting to nurture and develop a truly loving connection to their art in the presence of one who has dedicated their life to such a passion. I hope to work with Beth every time I return to the Bay Area.”~ Mitchell Wood (college student)
Dancing Paintbrush Studio™ Art Camps 