The Brookhaven Regional Arts Guild encourages area artists to take advantage of the instruction of well known-artists, teacher and workshop leader, Cecilia E. Baker.

Baker will be teaching pastels with an intended outcome for her students to understand and apply the techniques and principals of composition/design, perspective, tonal values, edges, temperature and much more. The class has been structured to benefit any artists, in any medium at any level, beginner to advanced.

Classes will begin Jan. 28 and will be held the fourth Wednesday of each month. The class will run from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Seventh Day Adventist Church. The class will cost $75 for three months. A $25 deposit is due by Jan. 20.

Baker, who lives in Ridgeland, said she’s been doing art for at least 40 years and teaching for 10 years. She said that she got involved with BRAG through participating in an art show. In February of the following year, she had a two-woman show with Gwen Robinson in the Lincoln County Public Library followed by a three-day workshop, which was the birth of the current idea of the class.

Attendees of the three-day workshop wanted the experience to continue, and Baker made an agreement with BRAG to bring the structured learning back to Brookhaven.

“That is my love,” Baker said, regarding teaching. “I’d rather teach than eat.”

Baker said she started teaching once she was “released from familial obligations that we women usually have.” Then, she said, she had the freedom to do what she wanted to do all along. Teach.

Sporting a degree from Mississippi College, Baker teaches individuals as well as classes, having regular student who come to her house for private lessons and having held classes at the Ridgeland Recreation Center.

“When they come to me sometimes they’re at zero,” Baker said about her students. “Working one on one is the best way. You get all the attention and teaching is crafted to fit the student’s needs.”

Although Baker said individual classes offer more one on one time, students can still benefit greatly from group-style classes.

The class is titled “How to build better paintings” and will begin Jan. 28. Meeting times will be the fourth Wednesday of each month at the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Highway 51 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The class costs $75 for three months paid by Jan. 28. For those interested, a $25 deposit is due by Jan. 20 to secure your space within the class.

For more information, interested individuals are encouraged to contact Rosemary Leggett, 601-833-6318, or Kay Calcote, 601-833-6600. Cecilia E. Baker can also be contacted by her address, 320 Creston Court, Ridgeland, MS 39257 or by phone 601-856-1802.