Action Painting

Sam and I attended an art class together the DMA today.  We viewed two paintings by Jackson Pollock that are on display at the DMA right now and we learned about "action painting"...the class was called Squiggle, Wiggle, Splat.  Both of the paintings were similar to the one here (also by Jackson Pollock)...one actually had a face in it (the face of Jackson Pollock's wife) and it was quite fun watching the children find the face.
This is the first time we've done one of these classes and it was great! We started with some basic art gallery/museum rules and etiquette. Then we learned a little about Jackson Pollock and his method of painting...the instructors did a wonderful job guiding the children through identifying the colors, lines, and emotion in the paintings. They also read a book about art to the children.  The children got to sculpt with colored wire (which I figured out would be a great activity for car rides and while waiting for our food at restaurants) and they got to do some action painting of their own.

(I didn't want to carry my big camera so we have cell phone pictures...)

The children worked together to create something similar to a Jackson Pollock piece by using the same motions Pollock uses to paint, but with yarn on canvas...they threw the yarn, "dribbled"/dropped it and placed careful lines where they wanted to...

Sam chose to make a circle...

...and threw some yarn.

In this room, they had the children pick a favorite painting for inspiration and then use their wire to sculpt...
Sam made waves by wrapping the wire tightly around his finger and then stretching it out.

Sam, action painting, by rolling balls dipped in paint, making splats with the balls, and painting with cars.

Sam's finished piece

...and driving his cars through the paint on the plate.
(I actually think doing this was his favorite part...he told me  painting with cars was the best part of the class.)

I guess we'll try to make another class in the future so Sam can paint with cars again (and hopefully learn something else along the way)...on the way home he asked me when we could go back there to paint with cars again.