PICKENS — The Pickens County Museum announced last week that registration is now open for its March-April 2011 six-week art class sessions.

A series of classes will be taught by returning art instructors Renee Gillespie and Jo Johnston.
The museum will also welcome two new instructors to the expanding team — Bill Lester, who will teach Beginning/Intermediate Watercolor, and Bill Jordon, who will teach Beginning Digital Photography.
Pre-registration is required for all classes, and those interested may register in person or by calling the Pickens County Museum at (864) 898-5963.

Tuition may be paid by cash, check or charge. Checks should be made payable to the Pickens County Museum, and those paying with credit or debit cards can call the Museum to use Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express.

All classes will be held at the museum, located at 307 Johnson Street in Pickens.
Each class is designed and offered on a six-week session basis only; No individual selected week(s) option will be offered.

Full tuition must be paid before the first class session. Students will be notified if a class is cancelled or filled. If class is cancelled, all tuition will be reimbursed to registered students. No tuition will be reimbursed within four days of class start date.

Gillespie, who holds her Bachelors Degree in Art from Washington College in Chestertown, Md., and also studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will be returning to teach a variety of classes. Gillespie’s offerings will include: Water Base Media Painting, Silk Painting, and Evening Art Class.
Johnston, who worked as a commercial artist for 30 years, also will be back to teach. A graduate of Orangeburg-Calhoun Tech, she has also taught drawing, watercolor, and acrylic painting at Johnston County Community Technical College. She will be teaching: Sketch, Draw, Create (Pencil-Charcoal-Chalks) at two separate times on Thursdays.

Joining the team this session will be Lester, who studied Advertising, Design, and Production at Mohawk Valley Community College, in Utica, N.Y., and Display, Design, and Packaging at Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester, N.Y. With a long and satisfying career in package engineering and display design, Lester’s last five years have been spent in Greenville, with a focus on teaching the process of watercolor painting. Lester’s class at the museum will be Beginning/Intermediate Watercolor.
Jordon is the most recent addition to the museum teaching team. He is a native of South Carolina and longtime resident of Pickens County. He worked most of his adult life as a Licensed Professional Counselor but has also worked as a horticulturalist and teacher at Clemson University. He has a masters degree in education and a masters degree in horticulture.

Jordon has been a photographer most of his life and has taught classes in photography at Clemson University, Greenville Art Museum, Furman University and John C Campbell Folk School. He will be offering a course in Basic Digital Photography.