Damien Franco dot Com » Art a la Carte Brings Out the Artists in Children

Art a la Carte Brings Out the Artists in Children

Posted on September 29, 2008
Filed Under Personal, art, local |

Art a la Carte was held early Saturday morning in Odessa, TX at the Ellen Noel Art Museum and Heather and I couldn’t resist taking the kiddos to the event. Heather even rescheduled a hair appointment to accommodate.

The event kicked off with a sidewalk art contest where all of the participating children were each given a “square” of the sidewalk to draw on the theme of “The Best Day Ever”. It was pretty adorable.

Here’s a couple of images of some of the sidewalk chalk art done by the children.

If you’re wondering which one is my kiddo’s, it isn’t there. We were a little late for the sign up (having a 2 1/2 year old and a 6 month old will do that sometimes).

But no worries mate, there were plenty of activities and fun to be had. Admittedly, I was very surprised by how many children were there. While I would have loved to have seen more budding artists in the wake, the event was competing with neighbor city Midland, TX’s annual St. Anne’s Fair which is a rather large event itself, and I felt like there were some really fantastic and enthusiastic children and volunteers.

Even though Tigi didn’t get a chance to do the sidewalk chalk art, she did get to participate in a large group mural type project where all of the children contributed a piece of mixed medium artwork.

Here she is working on her piece. She’s really short for a two year old so she’s on her tip toes trying to get her art on!

Look at that concentration! Here’s the finished work of a young master in training. The thing with Tigi is, she isn’t scared to put real emotion and laughs against the naysayers; “Pink is art!” as is her mantra.

We never did get to see the finished colloaborative piece, but I’m sure it was beautiful.

There were several booths or stations where the children could do various art projects with local artists and volunteers to help them along the way.

This is Tigi working in one of her favorite mediums.

And her finished work, which is now proudly displayed in the traditional form of parents the world over, on our refrigerator.

She has a strong use of negative space in most of her works.

The event was so much fun that even though Logi didn’t get a chance to participate, she was kept entertained. That is, until she started getting tired and wanted to fall asleep.

As you can see, I’m surrounded by the color pink and bows go with every outfit. That’s okay with me, because I’m raising princesses anyway.

Of course, if there is a face painting station to be found within a 5 mile radius, Tigi will find it.

She did, however, throw a curve ball by skipping the usual “heart” shaped face painting and asked for a circle! That’s it, all she wanted was a circle. I asked the artist if we could do one of the members of KISS but settled on a flower instead. Maybe next time…

There was a station for clay throwing but the line for that was terribly long and lunch time for the kiddos was fast appoaching so we had to skip it.

The event was a blast, Tigi really loves art. One of my favorite parts was when one of the artists asked how old Tigi was because she was painting in such a concentrated and careful way. I did explain that our kids are probably exposed to more arts than most other children and that water color was one of her favorite activities (along with playing on her computer).

I took some business cards with me because I initially saw the event as an opportunity to meet and mingle with some of the other artists from the area, but I didn’t give a single one out. This day was about family and art. Besides, I bet I’ll have a chance to mingle with most of those people sooner rather than later.

Heather did get a chance to meet her Art Appreciation teacher (she’s going back to school online!) and he seemed pleasently surprised to see one of his online students at the affair. Maybe she’ll get some kudos for going.

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