Meet Our Instructors

purpleturtleartstudio@gmail.com

LeAnn is an artist, art educator and owner/founder of Purple Turtle Art Studio in Bryan, Texas.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts from West Virginia University in 1993 and her Art Education Certification from Sam Houston State University in 1999. Her mission is to equip children with the tools of creativity, so they are able to express themselves visually with confidence.

LeAnn opened the Purple Turtle in the fall of 2000 and has been enjoying it ever since. The studio provides young artists with after-school classes, homeschool art education and , programming for students with special needs. The studio is also known for its, adult sessions, art parties and corporate events.

Before opening the Purple Turtle, LeAnn was the art teacher at Johnson Elementary School for five years and contributed to their designation as a Blue Ribbon School – which recognizes schools where students perform at very high levels or where significant improvements are being made in students' academic achievements. She has worked for many summer art programs: Girl Scout Camp, Brazos Valley Arts’ Council and Boy’s and Girl’s Club of the Brazos Valley, Camp Millican and Art’s for Everyone. Her love for summer programming continues at the studio, with routinely hosting popular sold-out Summer Art Camps. She was a classroom art instructor for One Day Academy from 2017-2022, providing high level art instruction to students.

The Purple Turtle Art Studio has grown into a fixture on the landscape of the vibrant Downtown Bryan area with LeAnn’s artistic eye contributing to the community in creative and positive ways. She excels at working through community partnerships, which is her true passion and can be seen annually in Downtown Bryan at the spring art exhibit hosted by the Village Cafe and with her students displaying and selling work at the annual Downtown Art Fair. Occasionally, her studio pops up exhibits at other local restaurants including RX Pizza, where they’ve displayed art created on pizza boxes in the past. She has also facilitated the Brazos Valley Arts Council’s Art for Life program for 5 years working with teens in the Juvenile Justice System to create public works of art.

LeAnn and her students often collaborate with the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections at Texas A&M University on projects funded by the National Science Foundation, providing unique learning and interdisciplinary experiences that are a fusion of science and art. Their collaborative broader impacts projects have been showcased at the SEAD Gallery in Downtown Bryan and at the Memorial Student Center’s Reynolds Gallery on Texas A&M Campus.

LaGina Evans has been a piano teacher for 17 years, and a music teacher for 8 years. She’s been a singer all her life, and was the choir director and worship leader at her previous church. She’s had a passion for music ever since she started singing at 2, and playing piano at 5. She loves teaching, and has a natural ability to relate to students with a vast array of personalities, abilities and challenges. Throughout her musical career, she has helped countless children (and adults) realize their unique strengths, and overcome their difficulties, to become the best musicians they can be.
LaGina has been married for 31 years, and has 3 grown children. She loves to sing, travel with her husband, and spend quality time with her family – including performing at community and family events (between the 5 of them, they sing, and play piano, guitar, bass, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, harmonica, tin whistle, flute and percussion). She enjoys sharing her passion for music with children, and would love the opportunity to teach your child!

Russell has been teaching Drawing, Design and Art History to students from kindergarten through college level and beyond for the last 14 years. He has taught at the Children’s Museum, the Frame Gallery, Extra Education for the city of College Station and studio classes at Blinn and Sam Houston State University. I have been instructing at the Purple Turtle since 2014.
Teaching students with little or no drawing experience is one of his favorite things to do. He starts with the concept of , “there are no mistakes”. His goal is to give students the tools to understand the process of drawing and strengthen their own personal sense of creative awareness by using basic techniques and a variety of media.

Professor/Graphic Designer
BED, Texas A&M University
MS, Texas A&M University
Tamara Garza received her M.S in Visualization from Texas A&M University back in ‘08. She has been a member of the art faculty at Blinn College since 2016 where she has taught Photography, Graphic Design, Art Direction and Digital Illustration as well as lectured regularly on Art Appreciation. She has worked independently as a photographer and graphic designer for over 15 years, having dabbled in visual effects for a spell after graduate school. She’s passionate about digital art, graphic design, women in technology, roller derby, classic ford mustangs, homemade tortillas and the life-changing experience of traveling abroad with an artist’s lens on life. She is a co-founding member of Garza Photo Design, a web and graphic design shop she manages from her home studio.

Dakota Rogers is a Texas-Based visual artist specializing in traditional and non-traditional forms of print-based and mixed media art. Utilizing xerox prints, multimedia collage, screen-printing, linoleum, image transfers, and stencils, he focuses on creating impactful statements in a bold graphic way.

Earning an Associate's Degree in Digital Art from Blinn Community College, he continued gaining a degree in Integrated Studies with minors in 2-D studio, photography, and graphic design from Sam Houston State University. After earning his bachelor's from SHSU, Dakota started working towards his teaching certification where he now works as an art educator for College Station ISD.