After a fantastic year of Saturday morning kids' art classes, the term came to a close yesterday with our annual exhibition. It is really satisfying as the tutor (as well as one of the parents!) to see all the work on display and realise just how much the children have achieved over the past year and how some of them have really blossomed artistically.
One of our aims is to offer the kids opportunities to try out things they may not be offered at school and so we have used lots of different materials, including clay, charcoal, collage, painting, drawing, sculpture, inks, printing, weaving, felting and stitching (can you see my textile influences coming through?)
The exhibition was a great success. The kids loved showing off their work to their parents and their parents were suitably impressed. And Dawn and I as tutors were happy and ready to face doing it all again next year, which wasn't necessarily the situation at half past midnight the evening before when we were still trying to hang all the work!
In addition (as you know how good I am at keeping things simple for myself...), we also had some free art activities for people to try, making spinners, adding to a paper mosaic or making a kinetic foam sculpture as well as running an Art + Craft Fair. The Art + Craft Fair was a positive addition to the day and it was fantastic to meet so many local artists and makers who had come to display their art.
When it was all over, I collapsed for the remainder of yesterday, but it was all worthwhile. The local school summer holidays start on Friday and so we have no more art classes until 1 September and I have to admit, I'm looking forward to a break and not having to get up so early on a Saturday for a few weeks! I also need to start thinking up ideas of things for us to do next year...
