“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 an on-going class, which means that it meets weekly, and subscribers are charged accordingly every Sunday morning. Subscribers may cancel their subscription at any time. For this class, that means that learners 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. 

Mess It Up! is a fun, social, mixed media drawing class that will begin with a new, fundamental warm-up exercise every week. After our warm-up, young artists will be presented with a unique and interesting drawing prompt or theme that they will get to work on for half of the class period. Then, 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 original theme or prompt 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. 

Schedule is subject to change based on student in-put and may be different depending on the section. 

Spring 2023 Semester Prompts / Schedule: 
Week of Feb 20 | The color red 
Week of Feb 27 | Plan a perfect garden
Week of March 6 | Changing Seasons
Week of March 13 | Based on your favorite song
Week of March 20 | The color blue 
Week of March 27 | Something you're looking forward to
Week of April 3 | April showers bring....
Week of April 17 | Pastel colors
Week of April 24 | Design your perfect bedroom
Week of May 1 | Activities for spring