As with any job I take on, no matter how big or small, my Motherhood anxiety kicks in and i procrastinate by stuffing my face or scrolling through my FB/IG feed. I'm not sure why I was having anxiety over leading kids through an art project but it was there. Day 1 was a success and I am now super stoked for Day 2, no anxiety. So, because I had my hands full, this post looks more like photos of my house as opposed to photos of the kids in action. That said, I think it turned out to be a pretty sweet environment for the kids to work in, especially considering it's my dining room. I made my first trip to Welk's back in January, and one of the purchases I made was an art card collection of one of my favourite artists/topographists: Jessica Hische. It's been on the backburner to have a set of the Alphabet framed for the hallway but it just hasn't happened yet. I have also had this giant blank canvas sitting on our wall for probably almost 6 months. These two potential projects came together perfectly as the backdrop and display board for this Art Club class! HA!
Day 1 would focus on basic Colour Theory. What better book to start with than Peter Reynold's THE DOT. If you haven't read this book, pick it up. We've had it for a few year's now and it continues to be an inspirational favourite. And if you have read THE DOT, then you can probably guess which book is hiding under it... FIND OUT TOMORROW!
Can I just say that after a year of living in our little ranchero, I am finally falling in love with what is happening!!! I LOVE IT. I had 2 girlfriends over for a Birthday Breakfast and asked Kevin to throw on some Velvet Underground on the record player. When I saw that he had put the sleeve up on the shelf with Andy's Banana I wet my pants a little. This is now the designated record spot. It has changed since then, but what better record cover than this for Art Club, right??? SWOON. That's Chloe's self-portrait from the portrait painting session I led last month for Eve's birthday party. And those super rad fantastic crazy animals are the ones from Mexico that I said I never wanted to show anyone. I went back to Welk's last week and bought a bunch of mini succulents for these new little shelves. The cute bowl beside the record was part of a pair, the other pair being the one that Chloe accidentally broke in the store and therefor we had to buy them.
Alright, enough of my gloating, onto the nitty gritty. The kids blew my mind. I designed a simple Colour Wheel template the night before because I only work at the 13th hour. I was surprised when nobody knew what it was and had never done one before and then I realized I had never had my kids do one either. THEY were surprised to find out that I had painted the entire wheel using nothing but the Primary Colours. We began with Primary, of course, then moved onto Secondary. PIECE OF CAKE.
Tertiaries proved to be more challenging as they had to mix the Secondary Colours a total of 3 times. Everyone needed a little assistance with a colour here and there, and everyone took turns holding out their brushes asking me "IS THIS THE RIGHT COLOUR!!! IS THIS OK?!!!" I was impressed with their perseverance, nobody gave up, and there wasn't a single complaint.
Inspired by THE DOT, I had them move onto a few projects that required more mixing: Painting a GIANT dot in their favourite colour, painting different sized dots in different colours to represent each person in their family, painting a dot by not painting a dot (negative space), and then painting a dot party!
Each class ends with a button making project where they use what they have learned that day to make a button to take home, sort of like a badge! I'll try to take more photos during tomorrow's class, hopefully it's a sunnier day!