Family Studio Painting

In our family studio class, parents and children get the benefit of exploring art materials and creating side by side, each working at their own ability level.

This particular morning, one young artist chose to continue a painting of a tree begun in an earlier class.

He developed a new technique of using a popsicle stick to draw lines to represent bark.

His younger brother took a more exploratory approach, mixing his colors on the paper and trying out layering areas of color with broad brush strokes.

Mom began with creating geometric lines and shapes on the page and used these as the basis for building a painting exploring color combinations, different brush strokes and ranges and gradations of color.

The fun part to observe is the conversations and interactions that allow family members to share their process while creating distinctly different products. All are exploring different ways to use color, to make marks and to create a painted composition on a page.

Family Painting: Lines, Shapes and Colors

In our family studio class, parents and children created murals to explore lines, shapes and color relationships.

We began with using a chalk line, a carpenter's tool, to create lines across the page.

The web of lines created shapes that became the beginning of our painting.

Family members had different painting styles, adults tended to stay within the lines, carefully choosing colors to fill in the shapes. Younger children created their own shapes with their brushstrokes, often creating gradations and blending of colors as they mixed on the paper.

The final result reflected a variety of styles in the family group.

Dreams for Our Community - Community Art Event in collaboration with Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services

Artwork created at our community art event with Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services. We worked on wood tiles and added collage elements, pastel and paint to depict dreams for our community. Thank you to all the families who participated.

Photos below show some details of the steps of the process. We began with sketching on large paper on the table and brainstormed a list together of "dreams for our community."
Individuals chose an aspect of community to illustrate. We worked on wooden panels with wooden collage shapes and oil pastels.

Here the church design is built with wood, accented with collage pieces and colored with oil pastels.

The final step was a watercolor wash that acted as a stain on the wood areas. The oil pastel marks acted created a resist and remained visible through the paint.

As artists completed their work, they assembled and arranged their pieces to create the finished community art work.

Getting to Know Clay

There is something magical about seeing children really meet with materials for the first time. Having watched closely from her carseat ever since she stopped napping during the art explorers class, this little sister is excited to have her own place at the table.

She discovers she can lift the lump of clay, it's heavy.

With two hands she can lift the bigger lump, look at the look of accomplishment!

Now she brings it back to the table, a slow motion, wonder filled version of the wedging and pounding going on around her.

The Children's Art Carnival at the Art Barge

On August 31, I visited the Art Barge located in Amagansett, NY at the end of Long Island. It felt like a pilgrimage of sorts to find this beautiful outpost dedicated to artmaking and education. I traveled to see the Children's Art Carnival in action. The Art Carnival was developed by Victor D'Amico for the Museum of Modern Art in 1942; it was held at the MOMA and also traveled to Italy, Japan, and Spain. The concept combined a room of motivational "toys" for children to manipulate to explore shape, color, line, and form, followed by studio time with stations set up for painting, collage, sculpting with clay, and creating mobiles.
Victor and Mabel D'Amico founded the Art Barge and the studio continues their legacy of innovative art education and a dedication to learning. In recent years, the Art Barge has recreated the concept of the Children's Art Carnival and I was eager to see it in action.

Colored gels on the windows demonstrate color mixing and show another way to appreciate the great view.

In the motivation room, this velcro shape felt board, allows children to explore shape, color and practice creating compositions.

Here elastic string over a peg board created a series of parallel lines. Children created designs by placing pegs and stretching the string over them, creating interesting angles and intersections of lines. This line exploration was popular in the motivation room.

Moving into the studio, this mobile making station provides a frame above to hang works in progress with a variety of materials for twisting, tying and hanging to create interesting sculptures. Seashells seemed fitting for the setting.

The classic paint set-up D'Amico suggested for students included caster cups with red, blue, yellow, white and black paint, a cup for water and a sponge to dab the brush. Here the child has mixed pink in her white and is painting on a piece of glass to make a monoprint.

Thank you to Thomas and Wesley for showing me around and allowing me to visit their afternoon class.

The balcony and view outside the Children's Studio and the motivation room for the Art Carnival.

Thank you to Art Barge Director, Christopher Kohan for showing me around and sharing so many wonderful stories of the Art Carnival and his work with Victor and Mabel D'Amico.

Coming soon...a visit to the D'Amico home and studio.

BIG CHALK DRAW

Thank you to all who participated in our first annual BIG CHALK DRAW.
To view more photos, click the title above.

Exploring Character, Story and Artistic Media

Children often enjoy the ability to move from one media to another while continuing to explore the same subject. Here, a character that began through play with clay, evolved into a drawing, then a painting and finally a story. Throughout the clay Pokey Pokey remained in the studio (or was reformed as needed) as a playful character in his own right.

It seems this clay sculpture was the original beginning of the "Pokey Pokey" character and story which evolved over the course of a few days work in the studio and was explored in a variety of art media. Pokey Pokey had personality from the moment of creation and would say hello to friends in the studio.

Here, the artist completed a drawing of her sculpture.

A day later when we began a painting, Pokey Pokey was still on her mind and she began with a similar drawing which was completed with paint and the telling of his story.

"Pokey Pokey playing with his friends and they are playing in the grass. And then they got lost and then there was something pointing to each of them and they couldn't see it very well and it was magic and it was black. It was a connection. It points to everyone. There was a swirly sun and there was yellow all around. And there was lots of light pink around them too." The story was recorded and displayed with the picture as well as becoming a part of a class book of paintings and stories.