Moondance

I was thinking that a change in pace would be nice so I’m digging into my art’s history for today’s blog.

It was April – or so – 2007 and I had just completed a successful art workshop with the grade three students of a London Independent School. This is the link to the story ‘And The Band Plays On’ - http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2008/07/and-band-plays-on-newsarticle.html. I was invited back to work with the second grade three class!

Both of these two classes were a super tonne of fun! I had put a lot of thought and preparation into these workshops but I was not prepared for how much energy the students would give back!!!


The topic that I was given was ‘Good Vibrations’ and so we discussed this topic and learned how the sun sends out good vibrations that are gobbled up by the plants. One of the students yells out, “Photosynthesis!” We talk about how vegetables and fruits are created by the good vibrations of the sun with a little dirt and clean water. I ask them to look at a blueberry, “really, really, really, closely and you might just be able to see all the vibrations wiggling about everywhere!” I asked them if they knew what happened to those vibrations of energy after they ate the blueberry. Then they told me all the sports that they like to play to release all the energy back into the world – cuz if you just sat around and did nothing but eat energy then you would become a humongous ball of pent up energy and you would explode into millions of bits! Then we talked about the good vibrations that we create while we are using some of the good vibrations that we ate – music…


I quickly divided the class into three sections – drums (pounding on their desks) – horns (making funny noises in the open fist of your hand) – and bells (loud deep ‘ding-dongs’ and high pitched ones) and they were off. I’d walk around the room and I’d tell the drummers that they weren’t pounding loud enough – then I’d bang their desks really loud and they’d laugh and do the same. I’d yell across the room to the bell section and tell them that I couldn’t hear them… Soon, the room was a torture chamber of this horrific orchestra that I had created and I kept making it louder and louder!!!! LOL!


Actually, as we were all screaming and laughing, I thought it was the most joyous sound that I had ever heard.

So, all of this eventually led to the creation of this second painting. Since the first one was an image of three musicians, playing music around the world, I thought that the second painting should have people dancing to that music. It was an easy connection for my mind to think of Van Morrison’s song entitled ‘Moondance’ and so the thoughts began to form to design this painting.


I taught the same simple techniques to this class, but I added a new element in this painting. It’s easy to see that this painting was created using long wavy and straight lines, with a larger sized brush. Because the Earth is in the distance it is fairly small in this image. If I had used the same technique in this area then it would take two minutes to paint it in, with just a few paint strokes. I got out my smaller brush and showed them how to do pointillism – using three different colours, no less!!!!

My mom says that the children enjoy me cuz I’ve never grown up. She’s right! All the children that I’ve worked with have continuously amazed me with their insights, imaginations and ability to express themselves. They are so open to new ideas and they’re always looking for new ways to explore this wonderful world of ours. Let’s show them how much joy we can create as we work together to build a better tomorrow!

Jim