About
Carlsbad Art Farm is located on ten coastal acres of secluded private woodland habitat near the Village of Carlsbad. Established in 2006, Art Farm combines outdoor studio art instruction, farm animal encounters, and natural science enrichment for students in Grades 2 through 8.
We are primarily a summer day camp running in weekly sessions throughout the summer. Students are grouped in classes at their own age level in separate studios. Ratio is generally 12 students per instructor and aide. The aide supports the instructor, so that the instructor's time is spent working one-on-one with your children.
We are also open year-round for classes, scout outings, school field trips, and birthday parties. Adult drawing and painting groups also utilize Art Farm.
Students at Art Farm work in outdoor studios, in small groups, at age appropriate-levels under the guidance of skilled instructors. Summer camp art classes include drawing, painting, journaling, and mixed-media projects. Natural science enrichment classes focus on learning about Art Farm’s lush habitat. Agua Hedionda Creek (“Sunny Creek) bisects the property and runs year-round, offering students a wonderful opportunity to learn about the native animal, bird, insect and plant life that are supported by this biome.
Farm animals at Art Farm are integrated into the summer camp experience. Our animals pose as live models during art classes, where instructor introduce basic animal anatomy for artists to help students understand how an animal is put together while learning drawing and painting techniques. We aren’t reinventing the wheel here. Drawing and painting from life is how truly sophisticated artists learn to draw and paint. Students love it and often comment on how, finally, someone is showing them how “real artists” do it.
Between classes and during free time (students LOVE free time at Art Farm because there is so much to explore and engage the senses), students are welcome to participate in the care and feeding of animals, play on our playground, and generally explore the terrain. On hot days we take our lunches down to the creek with Harry Potter and Mr. Weasely, our comical alpacas. This summer, just in time for camp, we are welcoming two baby Nigerian Dwarf goats and a new crop of chicks.
Carlsbad Art Farm was founded in 2006 by Perrin Weston Coman, who studied studio art at the Academy of Art College in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and her husband, Chase Coman, a former wildlife biologist. The Coman family home is on the Art Farm property. They decided to open their home for summer camps because they believe that young people benefit from spending quality time in nature surrounded by animals. Through the making of art, using traditional techniques and materials, students learn to better appreciate the natural world in all its wild, unplugged wonder.
Enjoy roaming our website. We encourage you to sign-up for our youth-friendly blog and to become a fan on our Facebook page. Facebook members will receive offers for discounts, adult art seminars, school-year mini-camps, Art Farm’s locally famous BBQs, open houses, and other fun stuff.
