A four-part workshop series for new competitors
Build confidence, prepare your work, and enter Buena Ventura Art Association’s juried competition in your own way.
Art INSIDEout is a creative outreach program dedicated to wellness through expression. We provide free, all-inclusive art workshops and professional mentorship to underserved communities throughout Ventura County. Whether you join in for a single session or a full week of discovery, we’re here to prove that creativity is the ultimate tool for a healthy, vibrant life. Classes will continue at the BAA Art Center - Ventura Harbour Village. Sunday 6-8 pm sunset reset + We understand mobility is not always easy and accessibility is of utmost importance for us. Be sure to contact us to request art programming be brought to a community near and dear to you. We are doing our best to meet these requests as our vibewell funding has concluded. We are emboldened by community support and aim to continue to provide free programming to ventura. We appreciate your understanding in coordinating our new implementation pipeline. Our classes are designed to provide skill sets to add to your tool belt. We hope to make accessing and expressing inherent artistic nature surprising simple and fun
In addition to our eight free creative wellness workshops available to bring to your organization. Request any class for your community
Instructor: Unassigned
With Bonny Butler and Ash Calhoun. A free preparatory workshop for first-time entrants in BAA’s That’s a First! juried competition. Come build confidence, clarify your story, and put your work forward.
Date: Sunday, October 25, 2026
Instructor: Unassigned
With Tom King. A free preparatory workshop for BAA’s That’s a First! juried competition, focused on helping new exhibitors present their work with confidence.
Date: Sunday, November 1, 2026
Instructor: Unassigned
With Sharon Taylor. A free practical workshop for BAA’s That’s a First! juried competition: select work, photograph it, price it, and use EntryThingy to complete your entry.
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2026
Instructor: Unassigned
A free group discussion with Bonny Butler for BAA’s That’s a First! juried competition. Make room for the real questions around rejection, exposure, value, community, and persistence.
Date: Sunday, November 15, 2026
Instructor: Friday Treur & Lynne Okun
Impactful words coupled with imagery were historically referred to as broadsides. These would be posted in the streets to convey important messages of the time to its citizens. Today, many feel overwhelmed by the hourly news. In this workshop, we will take-in natural beauty that surrounds us to grow compassion within ourselves, and turn it into something beautiful to behold. We will generate words that express our feelings and incorporate them into the art we create. Once complete, we will have something expressive to share with those we love & beyond to help elevate those around us and change the narrative.
Instructor: Rima Muna
Rima will offer an intuitive abstract painting process as a way to access inner truth, voice and emotion. She will facilitate a meditation at the beginning to help participants access calm as a precursor to the creative process. Visual language does not require thought or words, and can be felt on a universal level. Participants will warm up using drawing exercises on mixed media paper. The exercises will encourage them to practice making marks and authentic gestural lines. Finally, they will create a painting on watercolor paper/canvas panels (12x16") using color and line and shape to express their intuition. Participants will be encouraged to use their fingers to paint as a way to access direct sensory input.
Instructor: Janice Chan
"Go With the Flow" watercolor workshop is a relaxing, nature-inspired painting experience that invites you to slow down, observe, and create intuitively. Surrounded by the outdoors, participants explore watercolor techniques, letting color, water, and the natural environment be the guide. With gentle instruction and space for personal expression, this workshop is perfect for all skill levels and offers a calming way to connect with creativity, mindfulness, and the beauty of nature.
Instructor: Betsy Zuck
Deep Puppetry utilizes simple materials, exploring our relationship with our surroundings and movement through contact with the objects all around us. In this 3 hour workshop, we will embrace our ability to slow down, refrain from mining for meaning, release demands for explanation, and allow the practice to be our guide. Opposite the assumptions and reductions of classical puppet performance, this workshop will explore Deep Puppetry as a highly accessible personal practice, witnessing curiosity in the power of being.
Instructor: Jillian Nye & Lynne Okun
"Rhythm & Tide" is a soulful beach dance flow experience where movement meets the ocean's pulse. Dancers of all levels explore fluid motion, grounding energy, and joyful expression as sun, sea, and sound blend into a moving meditation. Build confidence, creativity, and body awareness. Suitable for all levels, it blends relaxation, connection to nature, and joyful movement into a supportive, uplifting session.
Instructor: MB Hanrahan
Explore polytab decals as a dynamic material and technique for creating collaborative public art. In this workshop, participants will learn how to design, create, and apply polytab decals as a tool for community engagement and artistic expression. Working together, you'll discover how this accessible medium can transform public spaces and bring communities together through collaborative design and creative problem-solving. Perfect for artists interested in public art, community projects, and innovative materials.
Instructor: Benjamin Stein
Paint a place that makes you feel happy, peaceful, or inspired. Benjamin guides you through drawing, color mixing, and painting techniques to bring your vision to life. All skill levels welcome — ages 8 to 80.
Date: Sunday, June 21, 2026
We've commissioned multimedia artist MB Hanrahan to create a community mural — and she's taking up to three apprentices along for the full ride. From concept to fabrication to installation, this is real-world, hands-on experience working alongside a professional artist on a public work. Co-credit included. Follow the journey here. If you see her, cruising around and spot, the Art Mobile- be sure to take a pic and share it to the gallery HERE with your name to enter BAA’s raffle at our closing out event. Stay tuned for the date.
Word & Wonder
A deeply empathic human, raised on Wonder Woman & Charlie's Angels, FRIDAY GRETCHEN dwells in Ventura, California where she advocates for the arts: literary, visual & performance. She was one of five local poets that established the offices of poet laureate & youth poet laureate for Ventura County. She's performed her work internationally and has been published in Miramar, Solo Novo, Spillway and within several anthologies. Her book of poems, Unkindnesses, debuted in 2019.
Word & Wonder, Rhythm & Tide
Lynne Okun is a multi-media artist, therapist and passionate life-long learner. Lynne is inspired by the power of the arts as a tool for learning about the world around us and inside of us. She has a unique ability to combine her playful and dynamic intuition about human nature with her personal warmth and the wisdom of her professional background. Currently she offers expressive arts workshops and designs experiential curriculum.
Intuitive Painting
Rima will offer an intuitive abstract painting process as a way to access inner truth, voice and emotion. She will facilitate a meditation at the beginning to help participants access calm as a precursor to the creative process. Visual language does not require thought or words, and can be felt on a universal level. Participants will warm up using drawing exercises on mixed media paper. The exercises will encourage them to practice making marks and authentic gestural lines. Finally, they will create a painting on watercolor paper/canvas panels (12x16") using color and line and shape to express their intuition. Participants will be encouraged to use their fingers to paint as a way to access direct sensory input.
VibeMobile: Polytab Decals & Collaborative Public Art, Mobile Mural Project
MB Hanrahan is a multimedia artist who works with paint, installation, collage, photography, film, books and performance. Her projects lend to the collaborative experience with social awareness outcomes. Her projects range from micro to macro applications — from single small projects to interior/exterior murals, including very large grant-driven City and County partnerships. MB is a teacher to students of all ages.
Go With the Flow (Watercolor)
Janice Chan is recognized for her watercolor-based work and an observational studio practice that extends to drawing and abstract realism. She exhibits and teaches in regional and out-of-state settings and maintains an active presence in the Ventura arts community through shows, events, and public programs. Chan's work reflects a sustained interest in disciplined visual study — line, structure, and nuanced color relationships — developed through formal training and ongoing professional practice. She has participated in local cultural programming and is engaged in arts education through community-oriented instruction and demonstrations.
Deep Puppetry
Betsy Zuck is a certified Deep Puppetry facilitator, passionate to share this practice through the BAA's collaboration with Vibewell. Betsy's intensive background in theater, film, and events inspire her personal practices honoring existence rather than demanding performance. Additionally, Betsy is a Beat the Odds drum circle facilitator—a social emotional behavioral practice utilizing hand percussion and verbal expression, and a Daemons and Tea facilitator—an exercise of drawing, sitting with, and embracing what we create. Currently, Betsy works with Focus on the Masters, a local non-profit art archive and outreach program, as Education Manager and Interviewer for the Artist Spotlight series.
Rhythm & Tide
Jillian Nye is a threefold artist: visual, performing and healing arts. She has held a residency at the WAV (Working Artists Ventura) from 2010 to the present. Her passions include nature, community building and travel.
Painter & Art Educator
Benjamin Stein is a painter and art educator dedicated to helping people discover their creative voice. With a focus on color, composition, and personal expression, Benjamin creates a welcoming space for artists of all skill levels to explore their unique perspective.
Teaching artist · Marketing Your Art & Yourself / Why Compete
Bonny Butler is a contemporary artist with a passion for color, texture, and creative exploration. Over the past 15 years, she has experimented with a wide range of mediums, including watercolor, Chinese brush painting, alcohol inks, encaustic wax, resin, acrylics, oil and soft pastels, and mixed-media collage. Her recent work focuses primarily on collage, blending materials, techniques, and intuitive mark-making to create vibrant, expressive pieces inspired by nature and the world around her. A lifelong learner, Bonny has participated in numerous classes and workshops, continually expanding her skills and exploring new ways to express her creativity. Her art reflects a love of experimentation, the freedom of the creative process, and the belief that art can bring color, joy, and inspiration into everyday life.