Eight students stepped off the bus and lined up in the gallery for a tour of John Grant's exhibition "Fairy Tales & Reveries". Settling down in the gallery, the children identified some of the organic images layered throughout Grant's resin-coated photographs.
Susan brought the kids in to focus on John's smallest piece, titled "Carpe Diem" which has a focal point of a bright red leaf floating in a pond. We tied in the concept of decomposition, and how that process leads to the coloring change we see in the leaves during the Fall season (they came up with green, red, yellow, orange, and purple for colors they've seen in the trees outdoors). Susan gave each student an orange maple leaf that she had collected outdoors for reference and inspiration.
Then it was time to paint! One goal was to show the kids how to mix primary colors in order to generate new colors. Using their stirring sticks, the children mixed red, yellow, and blue tempera paint together and came up with a dark green to start painting the stem and veins of the leaf. Susan showed the kids how to connect each segment to form an outline.
Outreach volunteers swooped in with blue and white tempera paint, and the students mixed those two colors to form a blue sky background on their paper. Artistic freedom then took over, and the participants created their own color variations for the four different blank quadrants. Lots of fun, with beautiful results!
Thanks go out to SSG intern Kaye, Outreach volunteer Caitlin, artist Susan Patrick and site directer Olga for their help organizing the workshop. We'll be seeing the Boys & Girls Club children again in November at SSG.
Post by AG
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