Avant Garde Art Studio

Our daughter attended Avant garde art studio about 2 years ago and it was one of the worst experiences of her life. I should have paid more attention to all the bad reviews everyone gave this studio.
The teacher and owner is extremely rude and has absolutely no sense of teaching. I’m surprised she’s still in business and has a few students that give her 5 star rating. I’m not surprised at majority of bad ratings this studio has. If you look at her responses to parents, it’s actually shows of a person that is rude, narcissistic and mentally unstable. She would yell at the students including my daughter randomly during class with no rhyme or reason. I have never given any reviews on any business on Unilocal to date but I felt it was very important for me to let others know that they really should stay away from this art studio and also keep their children away. They will never learn any art, be happy or even be safe at this place. We stayed a little too long at this place and I should have taken by daughter out the day she told me that the teacher Naline was extremely rude to her and to everyone and would call them mean names. She even did the same to me when I tried talking to her.
My daughter has been at Oam studios in Pleasanton and absolutely loves the owner and has learned so much about drawing techniques, art and painting. She loves going there every week and the teacher brings the best out of students.
Please don’t make the mistake of signing up with this art studio. It’s like HELL !!

We had a horrible experience with this school. We didn’t even finish the class for which we had paid.
Please do a better homework on researching this school before signing a contract with a owner.

I was so thrilled that the owner Lunati called the police. I just want my partial refund and I did not say any bad word to her. Instead she refused to refund and called police. It is not fair.

I have been attending the studio for at least two years now, and in those two years I have gained a lot more knowledge and experience of being an artist.
I have learned more about art history and techniques from this place than anywhere else. The instructor has helped me with my paintings when I’m struggling and gives me interesting additions to the painting that fits perfectly every time.
When I first came to her studio, I only knew some techniques and knew only a few artists, and now I know ten times more than I did earlier and know way more art history than I ever did.
This is a great to go to if you are really interested and serious into art and want to become an artist.

Feb. 18, 2014
I don’t like to write bad reviews but I don’t want others to make the same mistake I did with this place.
My daughter is 9 years old and we were looking for a friendly place where she can learn and explore art. She is very passionate about art and despite bad reviews I wanted to try this place. What a mistake!
First of all, there is no curriculum or a set class plan. The owner decides what to do with each student depending on many reasons she picks. I tried her 7-​class session and I was not happy with her attitude from the beginning. My daughter did not like it either but at first it was not that bad to quit.
After four classes, my daughter started complaining how it became boring since the teacher does not explain much and she never compliments her work done. When I dropped off my daughter on the fifth class, I wanted to have a friendly conversation with the owner explaining my concerns. As always, this conversation was not friendly. It started with the sentence «You can quit but you will not get a refund» and it ended up in a disagreement where the owner (the teacher) was very angry at me. My intention was not to quit or get a refund, my intention was to make my daughter happy. After our conversation, my daughter agreed to stay and continue with the lesson, but when I picked her up, she said that the teacher only gave her a hand out without explaining anything and wanted her to work on that by herself. That was the last class my daughter wanted to attend.
When the session ended, I went to pick up my holiday gift (that they spend two classes working on it — two hours each). Guess what. It was wrapped in the bag BROKEN!!!
I would suggest staying away from this place. No wonder her classroom has only three students.
Response to the owner’s comment:
Feb. 19, 2014
Nylene,
Despite your effort to explain my comments «your way» I think that I made my point clear for other parents who review your studio.
I think that my first comment was sufficient and I was being nice not to talk too much about your attitude. Your statement of my yelling is incorrect since you were the only one raising your voice. I believe you have knowledge but you do not have teaching skills. Being highly educated myself and being around teachers almost my whole life, I have met so many great and talented teachers. I can recognize both good and bad teaching skills. Well, I recognized yours as well.
Unilocal is intended to provide others with honest opinion and comments about a business, not for personal arguments. Therefore, this is my last comment on this review and I believe that it will serve the purpose.

Our daughter has been taking this class for a year now and absolutely loves it. Not only have we seen a dramatic improvement in her painting, but her level of interest and appreciation of art has matured.
This is not just another art class. The curriculum is geared for learning and understanding art work, techniques, art history, and various art mediums. This is a full fledged art studio and the training is provided by highly experienced and accomplished teacher who cares deeply about her students. She provides enough flexibility to the students so that they can make some choices along the way, yet stay on a well thought out curriculum.
The studio has well documented and fair policies so that the classes run smoothly and in a timely fashion. If you want your child to take the next step to formally understanding art, I would highly recommend this art studio.

My 8 year old daughter, Maya took classes with Naylne and this was our worst experience ever. She might be a good artist but she definitely needs to take some child development classes. I don’t know who gives this type of people teaching licenses or credentials. What she needs is a psychological evaluation. She would constantly mistreat my child, put her down, threaten her that she would expel her. My child has been in her studio 6 times, we left without even finishing the whole session, because after her classes she would come out so upset that we decided that even if we have paid her the whole tuition, we are not going to let Naylne to play with our child’s self esteem and bring so much negativity into her life. She didn’t even bother to learn my daughters name, she would only talk to her by using the word «hey».
Horrible customer service, the only time she was nice to me, was when I was sighning with her a contract and giving her a $ 300 check. I never got any feed back from her.
As a parent, it makes me so upset that I’ve trusted my child to a teacher and she has only had negative words to her during her classes, while walking in the studio, eating her chips and yogurt. I’m not even talking about nourishing my daughter’s love towards art, she is so disappointed that she doesn’t even want to hear about any other art classes.
I’ve a degree in child development myself and I understand that not all the children are cookie cut children, but if a child’s personality doesn’t feed teacher’s expectations, it doesn’t mean that she can be that mean and ugly to a child.
Nalyne, you don’t have children of your own, maybe that’s why you don’t know how upset can a mother of a 8 year old girl feel, when each time her child leaves you class that upset. I regret for every precious moment of her life that she has spent in. your studio and have witnessed your negativity. I would suggest you to close your studio and open a shelter for dogs, as you care about them more than about people.

Our 13 year old daughter has been taking classes with Nalyne for the past 3 years. The classes expose the students to all areas of art — sketching, painting, sculpture. Nalyne has a real talent for teaching the techniques while making the projects fun for the students. She integrates things about the great artists instill an appreciation of different styles and art history generally. Her classes attract a great group of kids, both girls and boys. Also, several times a year, Nalyne has special activities, such as trips to special exhibits at the museums and parties for the kids and parents to present the projects. Lastly, she finds opportunities for the kids to exhibit their art, such as a recent exhibit at the San Ramon Library.
Our daughter is quite active in school and other activities; however, her classes at Avant Garde are her favorite activity — and now have her thinking of majoring in art as well as ways to integrate her love of art skills into other school projects that she has.
Nalyne has a love for what she is doing and a true gift for imparting both her skills and her love for art to her students.

I beleive those Notes were wrote from parents, only from her friend

Our son, Matthew, has attended classes taught by Nalyne since July of 2010, first at Kids Love Art and now at Avante Garde. From the very first class, we were quite impressed and surprised at the result of Matthew’s art pieces. One, in particular, hangs proudly framed in my parent’s home. It is of a panda and bamboo painted in water color using Japanese art technique, one of the many techniques Nalyne teaches her students. I thought to myself, «Wow. It’s awesome.» And, then I thought, «Wow. How’d he learn to do that in just one class?» Also, our son is very particular of his teachers and when he came home the first day after meeting Nalyne, he said he liked her a lot because she is not a push over of a teacher and she was serious about her work. He felt like he would really learn from her. Since then, he has come home with more beautiful pieces which we’ve also framed, vibrant colors and texture. On a personal level, Matthew enjoys Nalyne’s funny stories and the time Nalyne takes to teach them about art and art history. He is even more passionate about his art than when he first started with Nalyne and he has grown in his abilities. And, our family is very thankful for that, including Matthew’s grandparents.
We also joined Nalyne with many other students and parents on a special tour presented by Nalyne at the DeYoung Museum when the post-​impressionist masterpieces from the Musee D’Orsay were on exhibit. And, Nalyne has also put together additional events (ex., parties) for the students and their families as well. If you want your child to gain a wealth of knowledge and technical skills, Nalyne and her studio is the place to be. And, an added bonus is that we, as parents, have grown in our knowledge of Art too.
In response to the negative comments, Nalyne does request that students be picked-​up in a timely manner and yes she is firm with her fees. However, Nalyne does explain this even before we sign the contracts. She is very up front with the studio’s policies. The policies are in place in order for the studio to run efficiently and stay in business. To be fair, Nalyne does provide refunds for the art classes not taken.
Our family definitely wants Nalyne and Avante Garde to stay in business. We hope that we can continue sending our son to Nalyne and Avante Garde for many years to come.