Neilson Creative Art Centre

Hi guys.

A few weeks ago, my class went to the Neilson Creative Art Center, to participate in an amazing program, based around art. It is an amazing place that I think will be around for a very long time.  The program is also astounding.  I think many schools will participate in the program just as long.  When we arrived at the center, we started off by looking at the art gallery.  It had many great pieces ranging from drawings to multimedia.  It’s amazing they change it every week.

After we looked at all the artwork, we sat in front of a piece that we liked.  We examined it carefully and let our creative juices flow.  I chose a picture of a forest.  After that, all of us went into the art studio to begin our first art piece.  We used oil pastel for all our artwork.  Could you tell that by looking at my pictures?  First, we all coloured the background a colour of our choice.  After that, we all drew a shape of our choice.  I made a triangle, which reminded me of pine trees, and made it red, since that is what a triangle reminds me of.  My original idea was to make a picture of a bear protecting its cubs from a snake; however the triangle didn’t fit in with the scene.  I decided to disregard it and make my picture on half the page.  However, after I drew the pine tree, there wasn’t any more space for the animals.  Instead, I just made another tree.  After that, we all got up and looked at our pictures from different angles.  When I turned my picture to the right, the pine tree looked like camouflage.  There were only 5 minutes left, so in the rush, I just made it look like a camouflaged cave instead.  I named my picture, “Hidden Passage.”  Where do you think the passage goes?  Can you see how my picture evolved?  After that, we got into groups and talked about our pictures.  We also made stories using the pictures.  What do you see?  Feel?  Hear? Smell?  Taste?  What stories can you think of with these pictures?  Then, we ate lunch and talked to an artist who occasionally came to the center.  She did many types of art, but specialized in print-making.  The artist showed us some of her artwork.  It was amazing.

After the presentation, we began our second session.  This time, we examined our morning picture and used that as our inspiration instead.  I came up with two ideas.  One was to draw different shapes, surrounded by black.  The other idea I had was to create a forest fire scene.  I debated with myself and in the end, chose to create a forest fire scene.  What would you have done?  However, after I finished my picture, I realized I made the wrong decision.  My art skills aren’t that great, so the picture didn’t turn out like I planned.  I named the picture, “Evacuate.”  After finishing our second picture, we got into the same groups again.  This time, we talked about the similarities and differences between our morning picture, and afternoon picture.  After that we prepared to go back to school.

As we were about to leave, I saw a picture that I didn’t notice before.  It was a picture of a river flowing through a forest.  It reminded me of native canoes and European ships going towards each other and meeting for the first time.  I wished I chose that picture for my inspiration instead.  I could have drawn European ships and native canoes meeting, for the morning picture.  In the afternoon, I could have drawn a winter scene where the ship was stuck in ice.  It would have been much better than my two other pictures, and kind of cool to see different seasons of the same scene.

Overall, it was a great day and I had a lot of fun.  I recommend the art center to everyone.

Feel free to comment.  I really want to hear your responses to the questions.  I especially want to hear your stories.  I will be waiting to hear some very creative stuff.

Abdul