Who is Chris Babcock?

Chris is a published children’s book author, illustrator, professional portrait painter, art instructor, and parent to her adult child, Mookie. 

In 1991 while attending The School of Visual Arts in New York City, Chris sold a children’s book she wrote called No Moon, No Milk! to Random House and Scholastic. 

From its 1993 international publication to today, Chris Babcock’s No Moon, No Milk! has sold over a million copies. 

No Moon, No Milk! was named one of the top ten children’s books by the New York Times.

In 1996, Chris used the royalties earned from No Moon, No Milk! to fund her painting and drawing instruction and commissioned portrait businesses.   

From 1996 to 2009, Chris developed her style of technical and creative drawing and painting lessons at the following schools:

Pioneer Montessori, Sun Valley, Idaho

Rio Grande School, Santa Fe, New Mexico 

Convent and Stuart Hall Sacred Heart Schools, San Francisco, CA 

The French American International School, San Francisco, CA 

St. Joseph’s Sacred Heart School, Atherton, CA 

Marin Montessori, Corte Madera, CA 

Ross School, Ross, CA

Through word of mouth from her art students’ parents, Chris Babcock’s custom portraits of children and families have been sold throughout the United States. 

Beginning in 2009, when her child Mookie turned 9, Chris decided to open her art school storefront called Chris Babcock Art.  When Mookie turned 22, Chris was inspired to open a non-profit organization called Chris Babcock Art Prep.

What inspired the decision to start the non-profit Chris Babcock Art Prep?

For over a decade, Chris has been thinking of opening a non-profit art studio that not only offered Foundations of Drawing and Painting and a Portfolio Building Program, but also Textiles, Digital Arts, Sculpture, and Photography classes for children of all socioeconomic backgrounds. But it was not until a chain of events in 2022 that pushed Chris to make her vision of a non-profit art studio a reality.

In September 2022, Cal and Charlotte, two 8th-grade students with potential in the visual arts came to Chris Babcock Art to take 4 drawing lessons. They shared the dream of being accepted at the audition-based public high school, Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (SOTA.) Chris explained to their parents that students need between 4 months and 3 years of art lessons to hone their skills in order to create the rigorous assignments SOTA requires as part of their audition, and an outstanding portfolio to show at private high school interviews, but it was not in their budget to pay for more than the four lessons.

Since Chris Babcock Art was not a non-profit, there were no flexible tuition program or scholarships available. Still, Chris felt so strongly that Charlotte and Cal would thrive at SOTA, that she decided to give both students art lessons twice a week for 12 weeks free of charge to help build a portfolio to be accepted at SOTA, The Bay School, and Convent. Her students worked hard and produced three SOTA drawing assignments; a stunning self-portrait, a still-life drawing, and one still-life colored pencil drawing. To be prepared for whatever the in-person audition drawing assignment might be, Chris had them practice at home each night by drawing their other hand holding different favorite trinkets. Chris advised her students to follow every instruction at their in-person audition right down to the rule of only using a #2 pencil.

The tenacious Charlotte and Cal were both accepted at their dream school, SOTA, as well as the private high schools they chose as backup schools.

A couple of weeks after Charlotte was accepted at SOTA, she came to visit Chris and shared a video documenting the moments when she opened her email from SOTA and read her acceptance letter to their mom. They were in tears. This cry of relief solidified Chris’s commitment to start a non-profit art school with a culture of giving children of all socioeconomic backgrounds the years of lessons needed to hone their artistic skills in any of the visual art mediums they are interested in mastering.