Mess It up! Make Art With Mistakes

“It's the imperfections that make something beautiful, that's what makes it different and unique from everything else,” -- Bob Ross. 

Mess It Up! is a fun, social, mixed media drawing class that will begin with a brief introduction to the class and ourselves.  In this class, young artists will learn to work with “mistakes”, build their confidence, and have fun creating art as they attend each week. Mess It Up! will challenge young artists to make mistakes or mess up their artworks then use those mistakes to build something new and beautiful. Learners who will be the most successful in this class are those who are willing to literally mess it up and love creating art. 

I will guide learners through a short contour- drawing warm-up. After our warm-up, young artists will be asked to take up their tools and begin to work on an artwork. They will be able to choose their own concepts for their project, but their work must fill the entire page and include their favorite color. We will work on our initial drawings for about half the class period before learners will be encouraged to Mess It Up! They can choose to spill water, paint, or coffee on the work. Young artists can scribble all over it with markers or pens. Or they can tear up their work or put it through a paper shredder. They can even glue an entirely new piece of paper on top of the work! Once their artwork is all messed up, young artists will then be challenged to make a new artwork out of the mess. They can choose to stick with the concept or take it in an entirely new direction. 

While we work, there will be plenty of opportunities for young artists to socialize with their peers since this course does not include lecture. Note that while I do my best to facilitate conversation and manage conversation while it happens, I will never force your student to participate. I keep the Zoom chat box open for verbally shy young artists. 

Mess It Up! is a multi-media or mixed media class. Young artists will be encouraged to use a variety of tools and materials in this class, even things that may not be traditional art supplies. What materials the young artist decides to use will be entirely up to them so they can have ample freedom in their creations. However, they will only be required to have paper and at least one drawing utensil (such as a ball point pen or pencil) to participate in the course. I recommend that they also have something to color with (such as colored pencils, crayons, or markers) and some type of paint (watercolors, acrylics) to get the most out of this class. 

After each class, young artists may submit their artworks to the Outschool classroom. They may do this by attaching a scanned or photographed image of their work to a comment under the corresponding post for that week. Learners will have the opportunity, and will be encouraged, to comment on their peers work. They may also share their work with me privately through the learner conversations tab. Young artists can also volunteer to share their artwork in class, but sharing is optional. This is a class focused on making mistakes after all, and not every work will be successful.