Mia Dutton

Art Instructor

Mia is a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, having earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration. She has worked with a variety of media and a variety of styles, most commonly watercolor, graphite, and pen and ink. Her personal specialties are character design (the human figure), narrative illustration, and comics. Mia loves helping kids find new ways to learn and think about art!

Melanie Ramirez

Art Instructor

Melanie Ramirez has a Bachelor’s in Fine Art in animation and film. Additionally, she studied digital 2D art and 3D sculpting at The Digipen Institute of Technology. Her favorite traditional mediums to work in are watercolor and graphite. Melanie strongly believes that everyone is capable of creating art and wants to share the joy of creativity with everyone.

Mahzad Roohi

Art Instructor

Mahzad Roohi has a bachelor degrees in physics, and has experimented with her arts for over 15 years. She’s had several exhibitions and galleries ,in addition to teaching fine art. Also she has license in interior design and staging. she has worked with a variety media, her favorite is acrylics and oil color. She believes the beauty of art comes from the differences. Mahzad hopes to help children ,reach their highest potential.

Tia Heywood

Art Instructor

Tia Heywood majored in Visual Arts and Ethnic Studies at Brown University, and in her undergraduate studies she took multiple classes at Rhode Island School of Design. Tia gets much of her artistic inspiration from the natural world. Her favorite medium is acrylic on wood, collage, pen and ink, silk painting, and linocut printing. Tia is pursuing a Master’s in Library and Information Science at UW Seattle with the goal of becoming a children’s librarian and children’s book author/illustrator. She loves encouraging students’ artistic expression.

Alexa Smith

Art Instructor

Alexa Smith received a BA in Studio Art from Western Washington University, where she also minored in Art History. She often enjoys painting landscapes as her work is largely inspired by her love for nature and the outdoors. Her favorite mediums include acrylic, watercolor, and oil painting, as well as graphite, charcoal, and linocut printing. Alexa also works at the Seattle Art Museum as a curatorial intern and is planning on attending graduate school to further her education in contemporary art history and curating.

Barbara Krug

Art Instructor

Barb received a Bachelors in Fine Arts from University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign and a Masters of Fine Arts from University of California, Irvine both are in Scenic Design for the Theater. For the last 7 years she has been a digital illustrator creating math and science games for kids K-5. Barb loves to pick up a paint brush and use watercolors and acrylics. She published her first children’s storybook that teaches kids how to use math in 2019. She illustrated the storybook using watercolor and ink

Zoey Tao

Manager/ Art Instructor

A major in Fine Arts from the acclaimed China Art University, she taught art in middle schools, universities as well as her family-owned private fine art school that housed 300-500 students. She was an interior designer manager in several architectural firms for over a decade, with offices in England, Singapore, Germany and Australia. Zoe started AL Studio in 2011 at her house in Kirkland, which now has 3 locations. Zoe is a big fan of “Go Veg, be Green, for World Peace.”, she wish to bring our community positive and love by art

Vince Kodikal

Co-founder/ Adults Art Program Instructor

Vince is a business strategist working in healthcare field . He graduated from the esteemed Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, India. His first illustrated book – The Panchatantra, was published in 6 countries around Europe and he donated the proceeds to a kid’s charity. He was also an art guest speaker in university,  museum and marketing UX for Boeing in the past of twenty years in Seattle.  He hosts weekend workshops at AL Studio for Adults, specializes in illustration, acrylics and water colors.