Busy, Busy, Busy!

Last Thursday, I spent the afternoon with the students of the Montessori House of Children. The students had a lot of work ahead of them, to finish the canvas on this day, so once everyone had arrived the paint began to fly!

The most important thing that I want any art student to learn is how to use the paint to create ‘texture’. I explained to the students that the design of their images could be very simple – to represent a classroom the students drew a chair, desk and blackboard. That’s about as simple as you can get. The simple image becomes art by the texture that is used to fill the space. “Texture is created by HOW the paint is applied.” For this painting I thought it would look really cool if we painted our images using very small squares to create the texture.


This close up shows a part of the blackboard and the wall. The blackboard is all one colour but by applying the paint in a ‘squary’ way –LOL- a texture is born. The wall was painted in the same way, but an occasional square is painted in a different shade of the same colour – thus creating another form of texture.

The students worked very hard to finish the painting and we were actually finished with about 20 minutes to spare. It was nice to be able to have a small bit of time to have relaxed conversations with the students as we spent the remainder of the class slowly cleaning up and simply enjoying the look of the newest painting to be completed in this group of four.

I had a great time working with these students!!! They were all very polite and nice and very, very smart – asking me some truly unusual questions about art and such. It was my absolute pleasure to be able to share this special time together.

If you are new to my blog, I would like to suggest that you link to a previous entry to read the story that shares the history of this art workshop: http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-home.html

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Well, it’s been four days since then and you may think that I spent my time relaxing over the weekend. That was not the case. Truly, I could not believe that I didn’t have more than one hour to relax at the end of these days. My second topic for my ‘Art For Earth’ program began today and I spent the entire weekend getting ready. Brushes had to be cleaned, paint containers had to be scrubbed, canvases had to be prepared, designs had to be created, powerpoint presentations had to be made and new paint colours had to be mixed and suddenly it was 9:30pm Sunday evening. I was exhausted!!!


I was back at Matthews Hall Independent School again today, to begin this second class. I was teaching the second grade two class… and we had a great time! The teacher told me that the students had been talking about the art project for many days and they were very excited.

The topic for this class is ‘The Temagami Forestland’. This topic always excites me because I get to share stories about how I became an artist. I am an artist because of the Temagami forestland. Here is a link that will share the story about what makes this forest so very unique and my efforts to raise awareness about the issues surrounding this endangered forest species: http://www.bitsandpeaces.com/Tttbeginning.htm

For the rest of today, the students worked with me in small groups of two. This allows me to have time to give proper instructions to the students and I can keep a close eye on their progress in case I need to offer them bits of advice as they work on the painting.


I will be working with these students for the next two afternoons and then this painting will be completed. Tomorrow, I will be telling them about the colouring contest that I have planned and I’m sure I will share those drawings with you by the end of this week.

Now that this blog entry has been uploaded I plan to have a nice dinner and get to bed early tonight!

Always be artful in all that you do!

Jim