kids’ art – Page 4

It’s All About That Paint, ’bout That Paint, ’bout That Paint….

October 31, 2016 by Lonnie Lardner

(Pic #1) Defining focus: One of several dozen young artists expressing imagination though acrylic paints in South Central LA, Halloween 2016.

“If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” — Abraham Maslow

So the other day, in reference to something I can’t for the life of me remember, my husband threw out this old proverb. I had no earthly idea what point he was trying to make, and as I often do, I just filed the conversation somewhere inside my most underused medial temporal lobe.

Then over the weekend, Hope’s Nest (hopesnest.org) volunteers and artists held our annual Halloween art workshop in South Los Angeles. As always, it filled me with a sense of joy, and I quickly began planning our Christmas session. Suddenly, in celebrating the excitement of the moment, and the anticipation of the next, I had an epiphany. I realized that the bliss I experience from of these events, comes from the same source: putting kids together with paints.

(Pic #2) 9-year-old Leimomi showcases her work. Yes, her shirt says, “Always be yourself, unless you can be a unicorn.”

At that moment, I realized Halloween is not about candy, nor costumes; the treat in the “trick or treat” for me, is watching the little ones tap into a creative spirit that they almost never get to show off.

For me, I know now that Christmas is less about the presents, or even the spirit of the season, than it is about crayons and acrylics, the boundless sprinkling of glitter, and kids who rarely get to play with these materials.

And Easter? Easter is about resurrection, but it’s the rising of artistic energy from the kids — toddlers to teens — as they design their one-of-a-kind Easter eggs.

That’s when that proverb crawled it’s way back into my brain. I realized it applied to me. All I have, metaphorically, is a paint brush, so in a real way for me, everything looks like a canvas. That’s obviously an oversimplification, but the thought of it makes me smile. Wanna paint?

Check out a few of our favorite creations here:

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Art OUTSIDE the lines? Yes!

March 30, 2016 by Lonnie Lardner

Close-up abstract - SCLA Easter IMG_7832-3

(Pic #1) Original abstraction by a 5-year-old boy at an Easter Art Workshop in South Central L.A.

Teaching our children: To conform or create?

(Pic #2) “What lines?”

“Stay within the lines!” It’s one of the first instructions we hear as soon as we are old enough to color. And the implications can extend throughout the rest of our lives. Thinking she is a “good girl” by listening to teacher, a child may “strive to please” thereby limiting her sense of self-expression.

I get that she needs to learn how to follow direction, but what about teaching them more? Offering an alternative to the norm? International superstar artist Ai Weiwei once said, “Creativity is part of human nature — it can only be untaught.” So if he’s right, it’s actually more natural for a child to “explore” than “obey.”

In my case, in Kindergarten, I became so obsessed with neatness — over inventiveness — that around age six I would constantly ask my best friend Tana Klugherz if she could see the white spaces I left in-between the strokes of color on the pages of my Venus Paradise (color by number) Coloring set. In other words, was I filling in the blanks between the lines completely? It was my top priority — because I was taught that was important. If Tana saw white, I saw red. I knew I had more work to do.

Ultimately, I discovered the artistic rebel inside. But it took years to let her out.

Finding fearlessness in beleaguered South Central LA:

(Pic #3) Left: Young artist showing his “Easter abstraction.” Right: The original line birth control drawing we provided him.

(Pic #4) Easter abstraction by a 3-year-old.

This weekend at our annual Easter art workshop, I was shocked — and stoked — to see dozens of inner-city children create unplanned masterpieces in their own way. I can’t explain it, but they didn’t seem to care about the lines — they just wanted to splash paint around with reckless abandon. They were so free. Yet so focused. So unaware of any rules they might have heard before. Check out the work at the top of the page and the artist who created it (Pic #3). We handed him a black and white line drawing of a cross with flowers and he decided to basically ignore the constraint of the pre-made image on the page, and make his mark another way. Bold, loose, uninhibited. And notice how the painting matches his black, white, and red shirt. That kid got it. And he wasn’t the only one. (Pics #2 and #4) It renewed my faith.

Real working artists have one predictable shared quality: they cannot be contained. In practice, this means they are always experimenting, pushing the envelope, and focused on the fresh and new. Their daily mantra: “Reject the status quo.” Thank God. Or we would have some pathetically lame or boring art emerging from painters’ and sculptors’ studios.

My hope is we can show kids the excitement in unleashing imagination, and the sense of accomplishment in making something out of nothing. So let’s just get the heck out of their way.

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Special thanks to Lucindy Jeter and the staff of Algin Sutton Recreation Center in South Central Los Angeles.

Kids and Color: It’s A Natural Thing

November 30, 2015 by Lonnie Lardner

(Pic #1) “Captain America” shows his “Fauvist take” on Halloween in South Central Los Angeles.

(Pic #2) “Le Bonheur de Vivre” by Henri Matisse. Classic Fauvist painting. (1905)

One of the most awe-inspiring qualities I see among my young inner-city painters is fearlessness. I love the way they slap on coats of unexpected color onto their seasonal gourds or Easter eggs.

(Pic #3) A 6-yeaar-old’s painting also in vibrant “Fauvist” colors. South Central Los Angeles art workshop. (2015)

They don’t ponder the pairings, but almost dare to bemuse adults with their carefree combos.

The young artist above (Pic #1) unknowingly made a phenomenal reference to what I saw as a “classic Fauvist” color palette: he juxtaposed complementary brights, like orange and purple in ways Henri Matisse (father of Fauvism) would have enthusiastically embraced. (Pic #2)

In the early 1900s, Matisse and André Derain formed a group of artists who painted with outrageously bold colors. This new in-your-face trend basically freaked out the art world, and the painters were dubbed “Les Fauves” which in French means “wild beasts.”

(Pic #4) “Woman with a Hat” by Henri Matisse.

In Matisse’s “Woman with a Hat” (Pic #4), the artist uses bright and unnatural colors to paint the portrait; he wasn’t worried about making the painting look exact, but rather creating an interesting arrangement of colors and shapes.

This is the perfect lesson for our young artists. I always like to encourage them to experiment, and explore form and color rather than perfectly replicating an object or scene.

Interestingly, experts say bright color aligns with a child’s energy. “Kids are drawn to it naturally, and love playful interaction with it. They play with color like they play with toys.”

While we often feel compelled to correct a child with mismatched socks, or colors that make no sense, it’s way more exciting to see his or her own creative combinations. It’s what keeps me coming back to the art table.