About the Founder

Ed Warren demonstrates technique

Ed Warren, Art Director, Director of Curriculum Development, and master teacher, started on his artistic path at the age of six years old. From his early youth, drawing and painting filled his days. As an adolescent he painted murals on the walls that adorned his family's home, and in high school he earned himself an "A" in a difficult science class by drawing anatomy charts for the teacher to use as teaching tools. In high school, he also exhibited his work, won painting awards, designed sets for his high school's plays, and designed and executed sets for UNESCO. Throughout his adolescence he sketched at the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He earned a Bachelors degree in art education from Montclair University in New Jersey, and a Masters of Fine Art degree from Rutgers University. While pursuing his studies he worked as a teaching assistant, helping other students reach their artistic goals.

After finishing graduate school, he taught art in a Boston, Massachusetts junior high school, getting some practical experience in his field. He then moved to Virginia where he taught art at the college level at Hampton University. He also continued to exhibit his work in national art shows. He supplemented his teaching by running the University museum. His years at Hampton University were filled with the excitement and turmoil of the sixties, challenging staff and students alike.

From Virginia he traveled to the Pacific Northwest, and then to San Francisco. He had always wanted to try his hand at commercial art, so began pursuing a career in that arena after moving to northern California in the late sixties. For the next ten years he worked as a graphic designer and freelance commercial artist. Re-examining his work and his goals, he realized that teaching was his real passion, and so returned to his original profession by creating a thriving art department at a private school in Los Angeles. From there KidsArt was born.

In 1986, married, with three young children, he decided to start some after school classes, teaching fine art drawing & painting. They became an overnight success, with families traveling long distances to study under his tutelage. Within nine months, his extracurricular program had attracted a hundred students from the ages of four years old to adults. Seeing the great demand for quality fine art instruction, he devoted himself to developing curriculum that would enable him to teach a completely individualized program to all ages. By 1987, families were pleading with him to open studios in their communities, and so for the next five years KidsArt studios opened in five different locations.

Teaching, training teachers, developing and refining curriculum, and overseeing all the KidsArt studios became more than a full-time occupation. Both Ed and his wife, Sher, were now working side-by-side to continue expanding KidsArt to teach in as many communities as possible, while still maintaining fine quality instruction. In the meantime, Ed was developing another program that could be exported to elementary schools on site for students who could not come to the studios for instruction. This developed into the KidsArt Drawing Enrichment Program that is now taught in over fifty schools in southern and central California.

Over the years, Ed has not only been a mentor to thousands of students, but he has trained hundreds of teachers as well. Because of his great enthusiasm, charisma, and extraordinary gifts as a teacher, many KidsArt students grew up to become KidsArt teachers (after completing their art degrees), and others went on to successful art careers in other fields besides teaching. Ed' s deep integrity to the quality of the program has brought to so many a real understanding of how to draw and paint classically. From a small after-school program started eighteen years ago, KidsArt now teaches more than two thousand students in seventeen studios and in many public and private schools. Ed's influence and great talents have touched the lives of students all over California and beyond.