Teach Your Children Well
8th May 2022
WE know the age old adage: “Truth from the mouths of babes.”
Ain’t that a fact! #nofilters.
In my long career as an artist and art tutor, I think teaching art to children has been my most rewarding, and most revelatory. This doesn’t mean that the buzz I get from encouraging and watching adults under my guidance flourish in their artistic discoveries is less rewarding. The difference lies in the sense of satisfaction I get in bringing adults to connect with their creative selves (inner child), and the spark of imaginative stimulation I get from teaching kids.
For various reasons reluctantly I stopped teaching kids in around 2017. FIVE years ago! Good grief.
Fast forward to 2022. I’m doing a long overdue spring clean of all the STUFF in my art studio. I discover a big portfolio folder, and its stuffed with all the painting demonstrations I did for the kids. Sometimes forgetting what you’ve stored is a blessing. But I need to shed i.e BIN. Then I find this painting. One voice in my brain is saying: DONT succumb to your hoarding instincts. BIN it. Another voice in my brain is telling me, hold on a sec….(ps. brain is very noisy neighbourhood!)
I’m suddenly reconnecting with the long forgotten buzz I had from teaching children. I’m thinking: there I was teaching them to let go: be UNINHIBITED, be funny, be creative! Since then have I been walking the talk?
SO…I reproduce my kids art class demo..
“On The Grapevine I”
..and it catches the eye of a viewer, and sells immediately. The comment? “Its humour caught my eye immediately and I had to have it on my wall.”
I’m stunned. Had I the tutor forgotten what I had taught all the brilliant little developing artists under my tutelage?
I decided– I remembered- art expression at its core is uninhibited self expression= “ON The GrapeVine II”
And a new playful experimental series of paintings is born.
So, the new “On The Grapevine” humorous portrait paintings series is born.
Want to see some of the brilliant art my junior art class students produce?
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1143486682350121&type=3
