WowArt Exploratory Trial + Workshop Pass Giveaway

Noey's always loved to draw. It's not something I understand or relate to because, well, I really suck at art. Doodling is just not something you'll find me doing too often. Not so my little man. You can catch him doodling all the time! It was great when we were on holiday as we only have to give him some paper and he would occupy himself drawing in the morning, leaving us to catch some extra shuteye. 

I've been thinking of re-starting him on art classes again as a result -- to nurture this interest since it is obviously something he enjoys. Also, between the two of us, someone has to know how to draw the many things he's always asking me to draw, right? And as it happened, just as I was re-thinking this, an opportunity came up for us to attend a trial session with WowArt Learning Studio. So I figured, why not?

We stepped into WowArt Learning Studio's halls a couple of weeks ago for an exploratory trial session for both my kids. Meips just made the cut at 2.5 years of age, so I brought her along for some fun, though up to the moment we stepped in, I wasn't sure she was going to participate. Credit goes to the instructor for the day, Teacher Aqidah for making her feel at ease. 

The exploratory trial session was on the study of contrasts, with the sunflower as the main theme for the artwork. The children were shown some sunflowers, real ones as well as a stem of huge fabric sunflowers to show the children how tall sunflowers could grow. They were all quite tickled by the fact that the flowers could be taller than they were! 

Dwarved by giant flowers!

The kids were then showed pictures of sunflowers, and Teacher Aqidah patiently explained how each sunflower was a combination of two basic shapes: a circle for the [centre] and pointed ovals for the petals. The children were then introduced to the two pieces of artwork that they would be completing for that day. The first was a shaded piece with [oil pastels] on sand paper, with their representation of a sunflower drawn in contrasting warm and cool colours. The second was to be moulded with clay. Here the kids were taught to mould the round and oval shapes forming parts of the sunflower, and then assemble these to form their own flower.

The kids were very serious when they got down to their work. As mentioned earlier, I was quite surprised that Meips was able to follow along. She definitely got distracted especially during the bits where she wasn't as interested, or could not execute the task as required. But at least she was able to finish her work, with some help. And I know she definitely had fun.

Seriously doing her shading. She even corrected me and told me that you had to use the side of the oil pastel crayons, just like Teacher Aqidah did. Impressive.

Noey also hard at work. He chose warm colours for his background and was adding the sunflower in a cool burst of green.

Both my little munchkins moving on to working with clay. Here they are rolling getting pieces of clay to press into the background.

I had to help Meips quite a bit with the clay so I wasn't able to catch any more photos of the kids in action. Noey did grab the camera from me in the end and took this (slightly blurry) shot of Meips looking rather satisfied with her artwork.

"I think I did a good job!"

And here are the finished pieces. The kids got to choose how they wanted to mount them, and Meips insisted on hers being placed at the edges of the paper.

Meips' masterpiece, with some help from Mummy.

Noey's tarantula sunflower. He was pretty pleased with that!

It was a fun session which both kids enjoyed. My approach towards art class has always been that it is always more important that the kids learn something - and enjoy the process - than it is for them to come back with beautiful pieces of art that looked like they were completed with the help of the teacher. In this case, I was happy that Noey later voluntarily explained the circle and oval shapes forming parts of the flower to me. Meips on her part was interested to point out a sunflower the next time she saw one and relate it back to art class. I think they learnt something, don't you?

I'm probably going to let Noey do a term of of classes with WowArt Learning Studio after the holidays and we are looking forward to that. In the meantime, I'm going to see if it's possible to let him join a session of their holiday programme before the school term re-starts. They have quite an extensive series of holiday programmes now on-going, including Wow! Workshops and Wow! Camps which are based on movie themes. The Wow! Camps in particular sound like a lot of fun as the kids would get to watch a short screening of a movie (choose between Madagasgar or The Croods) and then undertake artwork based on the movie clip they watched. You can find the full list of holiday programmes on their Facebook page here: WowArt Learning Studio: School Holiday Programmes. (Scroll to see the full set of 4 weeks.)

 

Finally -- yes, as treat for you for reading to the end of this post! -- I have THREE WORKSHOP PASSES (worth $38 each) to WowArt Learning Studio's school holiday programme to give away to three lucky readers! Each pass would entitle you to a 75min session, ie. one Wow! Workshop. You are free to use the workshop pass for any of the Wow! Workshops, Kids on Canvas sessions or Wow! Camps, but please note that you will have to top-up on your own for Kids on Canvas (requires 2 workshop passes) and the Wow! Camps (requires 4 workshop passes for a whole day).

To enter this draw, just do the following:

1. LIKE the Life is in the Small Things Facebook page (if you have not already done so).
2. LIKE WowArt Learning Studio's Facebook Page
3. Leave a comment here to let me know what you love about art! Please leave me your e-mail address too so I can contact you if you win.

This is going to be a short draw contest which ends Friday, 14 June 2013, 11.59pm, so enter quickly!

 

WowArt Learning Studio
200 Upper Thomson Road
#01-10 Thomson Imperial Court
Singapore 574424
Telephone: 6352 2221
Website: studio.wow.com.sg
Email: Info@wow.com.sg

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GIVEAWAY RESULTS!

Thank you for joining our giveaway -- the winners have been drawn!

Christine Ng, June Foo, and Winnie Lam, you are the winners of a workshop pass from WowArt Learning Studio each! I will be getting in touch shortly for your particulars.

I really enjoyed learning about what you loved about art. For me, it is the fact that art allows you to express yourself in ways beyond the conventional, and that everyone can have their own interpretation. There is no right and wrong about it. reading about your favourite fairytales! Thanks for sharing and enjoy your art adventures!