Free Saturday afternoon programs at University Museum have children take part in creative activities

Factoid:Programs begin at 1:30 p.m. and finish at 3:30 p.m. Limit for each is 15 participants. Small group enrollments are welcome. To register, call the University Museum at 453-5388.

By the time eight children had finished with their masterpieces and learned the basics of abstract art, a second-floor room in the museum had become a collage of colorful monoprints, painted glass sheets and paint-covered children.

Last Saturday, children attended The Printmaking Extravaganza Challenge, a free workshop for ages 7 and older at the University Museum.

“The printmaking workshop is intended to give the students an art appreciation experience as well as an art creation experience,” said Bob DeHoet, Museum Education Coordinator, who supervised the group.

Children broke into groups and conducted an art appreciation exercise to talk about the concepts of abstract art. They studied monoprints of abstract art from the museum’s collection to help them understand how to create their own. Staying in groups, they created their monoprints, with all the youngsters collaborating on the same idea and working with Styrofoam block stamps of geometric shapes.

The museum tries to work with some of the basic ideas, like geometric shapes, the formal elements of art that these students are going to come in contact with in everything from daily experiences to other art classes they will be taking, DeHoet said. He hopes what the children take away from the programs will be useful tools.

The free Saturday afternoon programs let children take part in creative activities in their spare time, DeHoet said.

“The weekends are a time when people have more leisure time and are able to take advantage of these learning possibilities that we have to offer,” he said.

Reporter Carrie Roderick can be reached at [email protected]