Are you like me and feel that this time of year can go a little crazy in task-mode - steering children back into school routines, figuring out the new work-week schedule for each member of the family - I need as much 'reminding' as I can get around me in these days and so lists and schedules are on my brain!
For all these reasons and more, our family needed to change gears a little this past weekend! I took the older girlies and a friend to GOMA's Matisse Drawing Life exhibition and spent a staggering 3 hours engrossed - so much so, I had to drag them away!
"I have always considered drawing not as an exercise of particular dexterity… but as a means deliberately simplified so as to give simplicity and spontaneity to the expression, which should speak without clumsiness, directly to the mind of the spectator." Henri Matisse
As we began our wandering, the girls remarked 'oh, is it just sketches...'. I became a bit nervous that it would be a very 'quick' wander! 'Lets pick our favourate sketch in each room and draw it, I suggested' and they began a little reluctantly. But with a LOT of encouragement, banning the use of the eraser and noticing Mattise own quote that he drew one scene over 3000 times before completing the work - 3000!! they got right into it! I encouraged that each of their sketches was part of a process of training the eye to 'see' and even when their sketch didn't quite resemble the origional I would remind them that Matisse probably thought that about many of these sketches - thats why he drew and drew again!!
The gallery was crowded and visitors had to step over or around my busy and engaged girls - most with encouraging whispers or broad smiles! Our 'experiencing' of the art drew much interest and yet the children were lost in a world of their own creating.
"If I trust my drawing hand it is because in training it to serve me, I forced myself never to let it take precedence over my feelings." Henri Matisse
We ended in the Drawing Room and it was here that even the offer of hot chocolate+biscuits failed to entice! They drew on, by easel, stool and electronic tablet..a teacher visiting Brisbane just for the exhibit took photographs of the girls work + at work - 'the richest way to spend an afternoon, well done' she encouraged yet actually, it was really no effort, for I was simply living what I love and sharing it with my children. Something I think we must remember to live out often as parents...a key to growing passionate, creative and inquisitive children...
If you enjoy a slow wander through the art gallery, I'd encourage you to take your children, a few pencils and paper and a lot of encouragement and enjoy this wonderful exhibit - its only on until 4th March 2012! And if art is not really your thing, then how about sharing a little of your passions with your children this weekend...
"Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence." Henri Matisse
