Happy Hanukkah 2020!

Wishing you a very Happy Hanukkah from CCA! We hope you are in good health and have a safe (and sparkly) holiday! 

In 2018, we celebrated the holiday with COLOR !!!

Our Art Adventurers explored color-mixing by making their own age-appropriated color wheel with watercolors!

We then took inspiration from the Bauhaus painter, Wassily Kandinsky & created our version of his concentric (bulls-eye) circle color studies… But included some radiating Hanukkah Lights! (Goal: Complementary, Neutral, Warm & Cool)

*As a boy, Kandinsky’s father became an owner of a tea factory. Kandinsky enjoyed during his childhood years, the piano, cello and drawing. “I remember that drawing and a little bit later painting lifted me out of the reality, he wrote later.” He was always keen on the arts but his parents had other interests in mind. They had him attend law school and he became a successful “Professor to the Department of Law.” Though in his thirties, he ended his career in law and went after his passion in drawing! He attended art schools in Europe and became very successful after his 2nd attempt at schooling in the arts. He then travelled with his latter wife in Europe for five years and then settled down in Murnau at the bottom of the Alps. He soon started painting beautiful, colorful “spots and lines [which] was gradually superseding images of reality.” This is what sparked our love for color! (Unknown, 2008-2020)

*“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” 

-James Keller  (Silberman, 2020)

*Silberman, Jeff (2020) Uplifting Hanukkah Quotes to Read This December. Website retrieved from https://rebekahlowin.com/hanukkah-quotes/

Unknown (2008-2020). The Biography. Website retrieved from https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/

Exploring New Mediums: Image Acrylic Transfer Painting

These past two weeks took us on an Art Adventure exploring new mediums! We were introduced to acrylic gel medium to transfer printed images from a newspaper and onto our acrylic paintings. We also got a sneak peek/ mini- intro to gold leaf and the process of gilding!

Our Adventurers exhibited so much patience in the paper removal process!

Tres bien! Our results are worthy of a gallery display. Visit our GALLERY here!

COLOR COLOR COLOR with Ms. Claire, Ms. Jen & The Color Factory in NYC!

We can’t stop visiting art museums and galleries this summer! So much amazing and fun art to see in NYC. This week we attended opening night of the Color Factory.

Located in SoHo but originally started in San Francisco last summer, this team of innovators, artists, designers & non profits collaborated to create an amazing pop up celebration of color.
We just could not get enough of artists visual play on all things representative of color! A fantastic family trip to make with your children.

Learning all about the Color Wheel, mixing colors AND colors in French!

We sure are inspired by color for our Art Adventures programs & Museum Tours this FALL!

Check out Ms. Claire & Ms. Jen’s trip HERE! And on our Facebook, Twitter AND Instagram!

“Color” Walk the Town for a fun and educational Family outing in NYC

We took a trip to the Cooper Hewitt this week where they brought color, science & theory to life in their current exhibitions, Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color and The Manhattan Color Walk! Learn all you need to know about color: from color theory used by artists & designers, right down to the chemistry of colors! Then take a walk on the COLOR WALK to see some 265 different colors that make up Manhattan! You even get a cool guide that reveals every individual color corresponding to a specific siting on the streets of this borough. Click to Learn More!

Manhattan Color Walk

We are ALL ABOUT COLOR at CCA! Do I foresee an Art Adventures project in our future Fall program -using a favorite color found in our Art Adventurers neighborhood?! Stay Tuned! And be sure to keep being inspired this summer with great art at museums and all around your neighborhood!

Learning all about the Color Wheel, mixing colors AND colors in French! (click image for more about what we do!)

Summer Camp Color Mixing for our Mondrian City Grid Paintings! (click image for photos of our Summer Camps!)

…and get ready to create this FALL! Click link for more info on our FALL classes! FALL REGISTRATION

ART on the GO!

Its welcome back week at CCA! During Spring break, Claire headed to Florida and met with Laser Peg’s inventor and lead designer, Jon, who is now working on many more inventions! Claire had the unique opportunity to also teach his twins color and pattern techniques with paint on wood. How differently they approached their pieces!  While one explored the magic of sponge painting with natural sponges (given the sea was only a few steps away) the other decorated with repetitive dots in various contrasting colors…
What fun!!

TN-fla.springbreak-class

TN-FLA.Spring-Break_Class

A big thank you goes out to Jon and Tanya for this wonderful experience!

Black History Month Appreciation through Art

In honor of this month, we commemorate Captain Patrice Clarke Washington–  through value study!  Born in the Bahamas in 1961, Captain Washington, is one of the nation’s, and possibly the world’s, first black female commercial airline captains!

TN-Value Study with Color commemorating Airline Captain Patrice Clark Washington for Black History Month

Taking a photo of her, we divided the image, and each Art Adventurer made it their own – following the “code” of values and using a wide variety of materials!  In the end, we brought our pieces together to create this colorful portrait of an inspiring figure who continues to make history.