Pass the Crayon

After a few weeks without PTC Weekly, we have some amazing stories to share. In this weeks article we're going to be giving you the low-down on all our latest art classes, as well as welcoming old friends and new partners, and telling you about an extra special visit.. to a movie set!

WEISSENSEE

​We are very pleased to announce that Manon, one of our key team members at PTC, has started working at a refugee shelter in Weissensee, and as part of her new role, has been given the opportunity to introduce art classes to the shelter. Well done Manon!

Manon and Maeille have been working at Weissensee, making art with the children every day this week. One really fun activity they did the other day was a clay modelling activity, where the kids got to make their own coloured clay monsters. As part of the workshop, the kids had to design and name their monster, giving it a unique personality and back-story. As you can see from the pictures, the children really enjoyed developing their monsters, and...

“I think that is important, the wanting: the desire to hold it in your hands, to befriend it, to see if it bites.” 

We agree with Sheila Hicks, our PTC Artist of the Week. Art should draw you in. It should make you want to touch it, see it, smell it ... to see if it bites! Basically, good pieces of Art are kind of like animals- cute and furry animals that you want to play with, and cuddle, and sit on.

Sheila Hicks, image via  Eventbrite

Nobody embodies this tactile ideology more than weaving legend, Sheila Hicks. Born in 1934, Hicks has travelled all over the world, learning the diverse language of weaving from artisan weavers in countries including Chile, Morrocco, Israel and Japan. An art graduate from the Yale School of Art, Hicks was awarded the Fullbright scholarship in 1957, which saw her move to Chile to continue her artistic studies. It is while she was living in South America, that Hicks first began to develop an interest in textile art.

The depth of Sheila Hick's practi...

Beguiling in it's simplicity, yet filled with subtle layers of meaning, Gao Xingjian blends black ink and blank space to create works of art that leave you lost for words.

As an ode to ink, we dedicate this week's 'Artist of the Week' post to Gao Xingjian, a Chinese artist, director, playwright, poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature. His ink-wash art  is a mesmerizing example of the power of ink as a mode expression, and the wonderful symphony of Oriental and Western artistic traditions.

Ink drop painting is one of our favorite art activities, here at Pass the Crayon. We keep coming back to ink as a creative medium because it presents our young artists with a unique set of challenges. To bring some form of clarity to their work, they must learn to guide the ink, to harness its fluid energy.

Every child (and adult) finds an innocent enjoyment in the swirl of combining colours, the dripping and running into rainbow pools and gleaming estuaries of colo...