Friday Club 2025

A Note to Our Art Shack Families

Dear Parents,

What a fabulous season! I have truly enjoyed getting to know each of your children. They inspire me to continue presenting meaningful, challenging ideas and projects for them to explore. It is such a joy to watch each lesson unfold—I introduce the project of the week, plant the seeds of creativity, and then they take off, turning their own ideas into art.

The beauty of the Art Shack is that we create from the heart—never copying, always expressing original thoughts and ideas. Through thoughtful conversation and imagination, our visions come to life on paper. I’ve found that as we get older, we sometimes become more hesitant to let loose creatively. Art Shack is a place that invites that freedom back—a space to explore the mind, take risks, and express what’s inside.

Thank you for sending these wonderfully talented artists to me. I hope you enjoy the art for what it brings out in your child—meaningful conversations and creative imaginations.

With gratitude,
Monique Cohen, The Art Shack

Friday Club:

3D Art and Painting

Doodle Books: Every week, the students get a 12x18 watercolor paper that they turn into a page for their ongoing Doodle Books. They doodle when they walk into the Art Shack, or when they are done with a project, or when they need to brainstorm ideas. This is their go to safe space to make whatever is on their minds that moment.

Cover for the Doodle Book: We created a cover for this doodle book, using collage board and random scraps of paper, learning that overlapping and using peek a boo layers in collage is how we created a very detailed collage, instead of placing one item down with glue.

Wayne Thiebaud: Wayne Thiebaud is known for painting desserts like cakes, pies, and ice cream in bright colors with thick, creamy brushstrokes.His artwork turns everyday treats into bold, joyful subjects filled with light, shadow, and texture.By focusing on simple sweets, Thiebaud shows how ordinary objects can become extraordinary works of art. It made us hungry just looking at his art! We decided to create a 3D version of the desserts.

3 part project:

We created a 3D Dessert out of cardboard and tissue paper,
Beaded plate collage using patterns, designs or simply allowing the beads to fall wherever
We painted our placemat for our desserts

Henri Matisse:

Matisse's cut-outs were a revolutionary late-career art form where the elderly, ailing artist "carved into color" using scissors and painted paper to create vibrant compositions, redefining his legacy as a joyful culmination of line and color, exploring new mediums to collage. We painted our own paper using acrylic paint and cut out organic unique shapes to collage onto a gold backdrop. It was interesting to see the negative space of the gold shine through in between the leaves!

Yayoi Kusama Dots- 3 projects in this series:

Canvas and acrylic paint: what can you do with a DOT?

Black Poster Board and Oil Pastels, using the letter of our name, we created a work of art using dots as a design. The black background made this a unique experiment in which colors worked and shone brightly on the black.

Paper Mache Sculpted Letters: We used newspaper and masking tape to construct our letters, we then glued strips of newspaper around the letter shape to ensure it was solid. Finally we painted using acrylic paint, and added puff paint for the textured puffy effect of dots.

Winter Wonderland! We experimented with the idea of using only pastel colors to create this bright white winter wonderland. This after snowstorm project was a fun way to explore mixing colors and using creative stories in our mind to create this landscape filled with snow!

Watercolor Wheel Mobiles: we had so much fun doodling with oil pastels and then painting over it with watercolor paint to see the effect of both art tools combined on the paper. We had to do this on two sides, and two different 12x18 papers. Next we cut out strips of paper to create the frame, the large wheel, and then the mini wheels in between. This was a first for Art Shack, and a great introduction to mobiles for the kids! It was tedious (we had to clip the mini wheels till they dried and then connect them all inside), but we created a gorgeous work of art that can be hung anywhere!

3D Assemblage: Oh what fun it was to create this one!! The kids used Playdogh and wood blocks and loose parts to create a sculpture of their own. We original were going to focus on a robot, but it led to all kinds of other interesting imaginary machines of sorts. Each one was so different, and each has a story to tell! There were so many trials and errors with this- which is always the case in art and life, and the kids had to really persevere to ensure things didnt fall off, and were balanced properly. Process was key to this project!

Fauvism Monster/Creature Portraits: Fauvism is an art movement known for its bold, non-realistic colors and expressive brushstrokes used to show emotion rather than accuracy. In Fauvist portraits, faces are painted with unexpected colors to express mood, energy, and personality. We had a lot of fun with this project, and rather than create the typical human portrait, we chose crazy monster faces!!! What a crack up this class was, as they created using paint sticks, with bold colors and smooth gliding texture to draw with. The room was filled with babbling artists sharing their details as they created!!!! Every facial feature had a purpose, every line, a thought. Enjoy these fabulous and fun portraits- THIS is what using our imaginations is all about!