Impressionist Project -- Discovering the Child Within

Tonight our monthly art council meeting was child's play ... literally. Myrna Mora, the art council's youth coordinator and art docent at the local elementary school, allowed us to "discover the child within." As the children at our local school study Monet and complete art projects based on his works, so we adults also got to create Impressionist flower pots. While we painted a white base coat on the three-inch terra cotta pots, Myrna told us about what the children are learning about Monet as a result of the art docent program, and we also discussed our kids' program this past summer, "A Taste of Art." Myrna's project also provides a beginning point for the annual art contest our art council holds each spring for all students in grades K-6 which we will be working on from now until late May.

We all had fun painting our pots using these little squishy toy thingies rather than paint brushes. Monet never mixed paint on his palette but rather dabbed different pure colors next to each other to create the image of color mixing which we recreated by dabbing paint on with the little "squishies." So we had fun creating art as well as gaining insight into the art docent programs in the local elementary school which in the past few years has focused on a certain artist each year: Van Gogh, Picasso, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and now Monet. (I helped teach the Picasso when J was in school that year.) With our district being the most under-funded in the entire state of California, the community has to come together in order to offer art to the back country kids, something both the art docent program and the art council are determined to accomplish.