Art Blooms at Patchwork

Every afternoon of children’s programming at Patchwork involves a wide variety of activity throughout our building. It’s kids and adults working together in tutoring, preparing snacks, reading books, playing outdoors, or sharing the things that each one is excited about. It’s wonderfully warm, caring, and active.

Lately, we’ve had some especially great art happening as well. We’ve had guest art instructors leading projects on tie dye and printmaking techniques. The kids continue to make large paintings on easels using tempura paint and painting whatever subjects strike their fancy. They’re creating garden markers from clay in the studio. They’re making oil paintings by drawing a landscape using oil pastels then using a wash of paint thinner to help the colors blend like paint. And just before spring break they created a giant masterpiece in chalk on Patchwork’s front sidewalk: Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” To create it, they used the classic “grid method.” They took a small image from a calendar and divided it into smaller squares then recreated the small squares on a much larger scale. In our case, the squares of the concrete sidewalk worked perfectly as the larger grid!

You can see a selection of the kids’ artwork on display at the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana’s gallery for the remainder of March. If you want to purchase your own piece of these great artists’ work, come to Patchwork’s Pancake Extravaganza on Saturday, April 23 from 7:30 am-11:30 am. The kids in Art & Company will be selling their garden markers and other spring-themed art. (Breakfast is $6 for adults and $4 for children and proceeds benefit Patchwork.)

Here’s an online gallery of the kids’ latest creations. Click on any image for a closer look!