{"id":5919,"date":"2013-08-21T05:00:02","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=5919"},"modified":"2013-08-19T17:08:03","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T00:08:03","slug":"backyard-art-camp-wayne-thiebaud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=5919","title":{"rendered":"Backyard Art Camp – Wayne Thiebaud"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today, I’m jazzed to talk about art with kids! A while back, I was contacted by Jane of Buzzmills<\/a>, and she invited me to participate in the awesome Backyard Art Camp<\/a> series she is co-hosting with Melissa of A Happy Stitch<\/a>. The idea is simple and brilliant: choose an artist, learn about said artist and work, then create a fun project inspired by the artist in some way with your kid(s). I was immediately in. And knew instantly who I wanted to feature: Wayne Thiebaud.<\/p>\n

Wayne Thiebaud<\/a> is an American artist who became famous for his dessert paintings during the Pop Art era, which I’m sure you’ve seen at some point. I checked out this book<\/a> from the library months ago and was reminded of how much I love his art:<\/p>\n

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It’s a simplified version of his life, of course, meant for children, but I enjoyed it immensely. I especially love the accessibility, the humor, and beautiful use of textures and colors of his work. I saw his oil paintings for the first time at the SFMOMA<\/a>\u00a0over fifteen years ago, and spent the most time in front of his pieces. I love that he was tenacious and painted his whimsical art despite having a hard time getting taken seriously. There is a quote from him in the beginning of the book: “I had a great life, so about the only thing I can do is to paint happy pictures.” And I agree. His paintings are cheerful and buoyant.<\/p>\n

So. The book was not available for this project, unfortunately, but K and I viewed this video<\/a> together and looked at a few of his paintings online. Then we dug into the best part: creating the project!<\/p>\n

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I decided to make it a two-in-one project including cooking and painting. Part 1 was the making of “fruit pizzas” and Part 2 was the painting of the delectable creations. Following are the easy steps. This is a great project for kids aged 4 to 8 – the kids I did this with are 7 and 8, and they loved it.<\/p>\n

PART 1: FRUIT PIZZAS<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Supplies
\n<\/span>Butter cookies
\nCream cheese (plain and strawberry)
\nFruit (any fruit that strikes your fancy, but we used pineapples, strawberries, mandarin oranges and blueberries)<\/p>\n

1. Make the cookies. We used this<\/a> recipe and the cookies were fantastic! Store-bought would also be more than OK, especially for younger kids. Each cookie was about three to four inches in diameter.<\/p>\n

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2. Spread cream cheese on cookies and decorate with fruit. K and her buddy S got very creative with these!<\/p>\n

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PART 2: FRUIT PIZZA PAINTINGS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supplies<\/span>
\nCanvas (I had 8×8 inch canvases lying around, but you could get similar ones at your local art store. Plain paper works just fine too, but the girls got a thrill from using real canvas)
\nAcrylic paint
\nPlastic dishes or paint palettes
\nPaintbrushes
\nWater
\nPapertowels\/napkins for wiping off paint<\/p>\n

1. Let the kids arrange the fruit pizzas on a platter or cake stand, unless the kids are very young. Spillage will result in very unhappy painters.<\/p>\n

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2. Place small dollops of paint in different colors on a plastic dish or palette. Let the kids go to town. I did do a brief art lesson explaining how Thiebaud applied paint thickly to get the texture and how to mix colors, rinse the brushes, etc.<\/p>\n

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3. Admire their work and take pictures! Bonus: dig into the fruit pizzas after the paintings are done!<\/p>\n

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Make sure to check Buzzmills<\/a> and A Happy Stitch<\/a> for fabulous projects, and there are oodles of other art-inspired projects from the other Backyard Art Camp participants too:<\/p>\n