art project: color wheel of TERROR (except not terror)

Today was our art day at El Escuela de Clarks en Miniatura. Technically, it should have been a science day, but I switched it so I wouldn't have to go outside or look at bugs. They have a jar full of box elder bugs right now that they collected from the backyard without my knowledge or approval, and every day or two they go release all the dying bugs and catch new ones. I would intervene if I didn't hate those bugs with an undying passion. No death is too violent for them, too drawn out, there is no torture too torturous. I could go on, but I want to stop thinking about bugs. Ew. Another day, maybe when I'm too drunk to care. (disclaimer: I do not drink. But not ruling it out.) 

Back to art. I don't really have any art knowledge. I mean, Fine Arts, sure. Give me a dramatic inch and I'll make it a mile with some monologuing and awkwardly loud show tunes. But the drawing stuff not so much. To put it delicately, I stink. I like\ art, though, and like many other things, I want my kids to love it, even if the odds of it paying for a decent nursing home are super slim. Plus, we have good artists on both sides of the family, so if that's a genetic possibility then I want to develop it.

So a friend of ours is working with them, teaching them art basics, and this week I found color wheels from Pinterest and decided we'd try them. 

First, I got a couple of pieces of posterboard, and then sent the children on a housewide scavenger hunt for 5 items from each of the primary and 2 secondary colors (again, not an artist, so if I get something wrong, ask me to quote a line from Annie. BECAUSE I KNOW THEM ALL.) They found little toys, broken crayons, scraps and straws and made a collection. 

Then we traced circles on the board using a dehydrator tray as our line. This is where things got a little tricky. I know how to make a pizza, how to divide a circle into 8 parts. Somehow, dividing a circle into 6 parts was extremely complicated. "Well," you say snootily, "You just divide the meridian by the rhombus and then pi and that's your circumference. Duh." To which I say, I feel charming, oh so charming, it's alarming how charming I feel, and so pretty, that I hardly can believe I'm real. BOOM.

There was a lot of erasing and an enormous amount of questioning my measuring abilities, which stung a little. It's humbling, admitting your mental weakness to people who still pee in their pants sometimes. This is the not-Pinterested part of the show, where I snap at the children, and take their pencils away because I do not want lasers shooting through the color wheel, the color wheel does not need any lasers. How am I supposed to facilitate this heartwarming simple art project if people keep drawing lasers? 

Once there were 6 radically different triangles traced, I wrote tiny letter clues for what color to paint each section, and they were off. Tristan helped by throwing Legos at people's heads and trying to run away with the paint every 18 seconds. While the paint was still wet, they started gluing in their found items. Somehow, despite my obsessive back to school shopping, we are down to one glue and one pair of non-lethal scissors, so there were a few scuffles in between getting clocked in the head with blocks and deciding if it was blood or paint.  

In the end, it was a fun, fairly messy project that we enjoyed, especially Tristan. Plus, I think I know the color wheel. Also every word from Beauty and the Beast. EVERY WORD.