Artsy Farsty

I get the infamous question all the time...

Who taught you to do that or this or how to...

Well most of the time the answer is no one. I figured it out or made something up.
It's about like my cooking. I make stuff up as I go along, but we won't talk about that right now.

I didn't actually "learn" how to do art. I just went with what I was given when I was little and have built on it ever since. You can't teach HOW to think outside the box, but you can guide someone to do so.

This would be why I have put together art classes for kids this year at the dance studio.
I want kids to dive in and get their creative juices flowing. I won't be "teaching them" to do art. I'll be guiding them to use proper mediums and techniques together and guiding them to excel in making their masterpieces. Most importantly, I'll hopefully be helping them to release their inner artist whether it be a cartoonist, painter, sculpter, etc. I hope to help kids find their niche. What are they good at? What do they enjoy more? What do they like?

I want the kids to be able to be able to have a worry free zone.
No one grading them. No one telling them they're wrong.
There is no "wrong" in art.

SO here's my story on my artsyness.

To keep me entertained and busy, my mother used to put paper and crayons in front of me and play copy cat.

**my younger dance girls know this game well**

She would draw (usually a bumblebee) a picture of something and I was to copy it.
This started my drawing and doodling expertise.
From then on, I doodled on everything.
My high school teachers giggled at my notes  because I would do them in different fonts or fill the margins with patterns, pictures, or who knows what.

When I was in Kindergarten, I had an old book that had "art project how to's" in it. My favorite was the penguin made of construction paper.

One day my teacher let me sit in the middle of the class and teach them to make the penguin. Yes, kindergartener teaches kindergarten.
Thank you Mrs. Wooldrige for letting me always go to the art center and never have to play in the other centers with the other children.

Then came elementary school. I tested in and was selected to participate in SAGE. It was heaven on earth for me. We got to think outside the box and the more creative the better.

At Central, we had art as an activity period. I hated it.
I hated someone told me I did it wrong or mine wasn't what it was supposed to be. To me it was right and it was how I wanted it to look.
The final straw was the day the teacher told me that my pattern wasn't a pattern and she was going to throw my picture away.
I swore no one was going to steal my art thunder. Yes as a 4th grader.

So through jr. high and high school I did not take art from the school. I weaseled my way out of the extracurricular by taking half a year of band in the 9th grade.
I was a majorette. Marching season was done and so was I.

All through school I made who knows how many t-shirts, jeans, signs, bags, canvases, and oh Lord the SHOES!
I remember once we needed shirts for a dance we were doing for a pep rally my junior year. There were 12 cheerleaders including myself.
 I stayed up til 4am stoning and painting those things. The E6000 was stout, and the shirts were strewn everywhere in my room to dry.

Through college I funded my gas money and making the difference in my car note with my paint projects.

Now, it goes in my child's diaper fund.

So that's where it came from. Years of just figuring out what worked and what didn't. What I liked and what I didn't.

So that's where it all came from and why I want to have art classes at the studio.