Each year as the Fall begins, the art room starts to transform from a BLANK CANVAS (113 of them to be exact) into an evolving rainbow of colors and new ideas. The structure of the semester is simple: each artist is given a 12″x12″ canvas to paint throughout the semester and one color per week, plus white is offered with a variety of traditional and unique tools to use. The slow rollout of the one color per week, plus white allows the artists a chance to explore SHADES more closely than they would otherwise. Layer after layer this process produces wonderfully worked paintings and shows the class that art can indeed be created over a long period of time. PATIENCE, FOCUS and ATTENTION TO DETAIL are a few of the things ingrained over the next few months.
There will be many different approaches to these paintings: Some will focus on COVERAGE and completely obliterate what they did the week before, EXPERIMENTERS will use every tool in the book to create new effects, BATHERS will need to plunge in deep with their hands and arms, NEATNIKS will be precise and calculated, never spilling a drop, SHAPERS will focus on geometry and good old REALISTS who don’t really subscribe to the whole ABSTRACT thing, will do their thing.
There will be a few SECRET INGREDIENTS thrown in towards the end to shake it up before the paintings go home at the Winter holiday break.
My hope it that when your kids come home on Thursdays you will ask them about their painting experience. Chances are, there will be some reminders of the day on their clothes (which will wash out mostly) to cue you into these discussions. I know all too well how it can sometimes be hard to get much information from children about their goings- on at school. Hopefully, this will provide a small window of opportunity. If not, at least you’ll have these updates to give you a look.
