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Free Family Funday Archive

Since 2020 we've been sharing lesson plans and how-to videos for each of our Free Family Fundays so you can explore artists and delve into creations at home!

Animal Diorama | Free Family Funday | July 2024

For the month of July, we will be making animal dioramas inspired by the works of John James Audubon and Mark Messersmith. With the help of local artist Stella Arbelaez, we will be creating drawings of animals of our choosing and then creating their habitat and environment out of art materials.

Bird Kites | Free Family Funday | June 2024

This month we are exploring one of our newest exhibitions, Mark Messersmith: Long Summer by making bird kites! These bird kites are inspired by the diverse selection of birds found in Mark Messersmith's works that are currently on view. Local artist Katrina Constantine of Kicking Cones will be joining us to help bring the birds to life with her animal illustration skills!

Mother's Day Portraits | Free Family Funday | May 2024

For this month’s project, we will be making self-portraits inspired by both Mary Proctor and local artist Anthony Darby. These self-portraits are a chance for young artists to create portraiture that bends the rules! Try creating a portrait in the style of Anthony’s work with twisted perspective and adding unexpected materials like buttons, beads, and even pennies to your work like Mary Proctor!

Mixed Media Masterpieces | Free Family Funday | April 2024

This month we are continuing our partnership with local Orlando artists with Njeri Kinuthia! For this project, we will use beads and fabric to create collages and sculptures inspired by Bessie Harvey. Harvey’s use of brightly colored beads connects to Njeri’s collage creation Star of Hope. We will use twigs to create the sculptures, similar to Harvey’s tree root sculptures, wrapping them in beads

Let it Go & Flow | Free Family Funday | March 2024

This month’s project is being led by local artist, Tasanee Durrett! She has created a project inspired by the works of Nellie Mae Rowe! Blind Contour Drawing lets your hand unleash its hidden talents! In this activity, children and families will strengthen focus skills and self-expression by drawing objects without looking at their paper.

Zinnias for Clementine| Free Family Funday | February 2024

This month’s project will be inspired by the works of Louisiana artist, Clementine Hunter! As a self-taught artist, Clementine did not study art in school or learn from another artist. She also did not begin making art until she was in her 50s, creating between five thousand to ten thousand artworks in her lifetime.

Watercolor Snowflakes | Free Family Funday | January 2024

This month, we will be creating patterned paper snowflakes that will swirl with color! For our final Free Family Funday of the In Nature’s Studio exhibition, we will be making snowflakes inspired by the snowy, winter landscapes featured in the exhibition! To do so, we will be cutting shapes that, once opened up, become repeating patterns that transform coffee filters into snowflakes!

3D Landscapes | Free Family Funday | December 2023

Paper Leaf Lantern | Free Family Funday | November 2023

This month we will be incorporating actual nature into our craft! We will be creating paper leaf lanterns that will include found objects from nature like leaves and flowers. During our current exhibition, In Nature’s Studio, we see artists who create paintings of vast landscapes, full of natural elements like trees, leaves, and sunlight.

Coil Pots | Free Family Funday | October 2023

Tomorrow, October 9th is Indigenous Peoples Day in the United States. Indigenous people are the people who are native to the land, like those of the Seminole tribe here in Florida and the tribes depicted by the Hudson River School of artists. Indigenous Peoples Day is about celebrating Indigenous culture and histories! For this month’s activity, we will be creating clay pots

Textiles | Free Family Funday | September 2023

For the month of September, we will be creating woven circles inspired by the flatworks of Anila Quayyum Agha! Agha makes works that are made of embroidered paper, a very delicate and difficult process. These embroidered works are inspired sewing circle, or places where women would come together and sew.

Pattern Play | Free Family Funday | August 2023

This month, we will be pulling inspiration from the patterns found in the works of Anila Quayyum Agha to create stamps that will make beautiful patterns, just like in her works! These stamps will allow us to create any kind of design we wish using geometric and arabesque-like shapes! Some patterns incorporate natural elements like flowers and vines. These are called arabesque patterns.

Light Boxes | Free Family Funday | July 2023

This July, we will be creating patterned light boxes so we can take home our very own Anila Quayyum Agha-inspired cube! These boxes are decorated with patterns and lit from the inside just like Crossing Boundaries (Red Cube)! While decorating our boxes, we will be incorporating many different patterns. Some patterns incorporate natural elements like flowers and vines.

Palette Knives | Free Family Funday | June 2023

For our last Free Family Funday of Impression and Reality, we will be using palette knives to create bold strokes of paint, which could look similar to the brushstrokes seen in the Impressionist and Realist paintings in the exhibition. Using the palette knife will allow for the paint to have a 3D look, popping off of our canvas. This is a technique artists use called impasto.

Watercolor Flowers | Free Family Funday | May 2023

We are celebrating the springtime this month with a festive floral craft! Using liquid watercolors, we will be making brightly colored flowers inspired by the gardens and florals featured in the artworks in the Impression and Reality exhibition. Impressionist became fascinated with capturing fleeting moments, especially in nature and gardens.

Pastels | Free Family Funday | April 2023

This month, we will be using oil pastels to create our very own Impressionism and Realism inspired artworks! One main feature in Impressionism and Realism artworks is the non-traditional use of brushstrokes! Instead of making their art perfectly blended and realistic, the artists would use the thick, bold lines that their paintbrushes would make on their canvas.

Portraiture | Free Family Funday | March 2023

This month, we are getting inspired by the portraits in our Impression and Reality exhibition! The artists of these two movements had very different approaches when it came to portraiture: The Impressionist portraits in our show mainly depict women, often dressed in clothing of the wealthy upper-class, lounging in interior rooms or outside by the gardens.

Pinhole Camera | Free Family Funday | February 2023

This month, we are assembling pinhole cameras! Pinhole cameras are cameras without any lens, only using a small pin-sized hole that reflects an inverted image of the scene in front of it. As seen in the image to the right, the sun-lit tree's image is passing through the small pinhole and reflecting onto the inside of the box. This effect is called camera obscura.

Artist Volume | Free Family Funday | January 2023

For the month of January, we will be making our own artist volumes using a very easy bookbinding method. These volumes will be a place where you can display your art, photographs, sketches, or anything that you feel represents you! Similarly to how Will Wilson encouraged his sitters to be photographed in a way that best represented themselves.

Cyanotypes | Free Family Funday | December 2022

This month, we are experiencing the step by step process of creating a cyanotype! Cyanotypes were introduced by John Herschel in 1839, creating a cheaper and easier form of printing. These cyanotypes are where the term "blue print" came from, as exposing the light sensitive chemicals to sunlight creates a blue print!

Self-Portrait Polaroids | Free Family Funday | November 2022

In November, we will be taking inspiration from Will Wilson's Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX) Project to create our very own expressive self-portraits. The self-portrait has existed for centuries, as early as the Renaissance. Ever since its emergence, the self-portrait has been a way to express yourself to others.

Flashy Fish, Creepy Crawlies | Free Family Funday | October 2022

In October, we will be crafting our very own clay animals while looking to O.L. Samuels for inspiration! Ozzie Lee "O.L." Samuels began sculpting when his grandmother suggested carving sculptures to relieve sadness and anxiety. His animal sculptures were made from wood and covered with a concoction of saw dust, glue, and paint to make a skin-like texture.

Braiding Coasters | Free Family Funday | September 2022

This month, we will be pulling inspiration from Willie Eaglin’s braided rugs and creating our own colorful, braided fabric coasters! Willie Eaglin began braiding rugs as a form of rehabilitation therapy for him during his stay at the Miami’s Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, as he lost his vision at 60 due to glaucoma.

Personifying Color Blobs | Free Family Funday | August 2022

In August, our mission is to turn fun, colorful, blobs of glow in the dark color into human or animal figures! This month’s project is inspired by Gene Beecher. Gene Beecher's mysterious paintings began with broad, spontaneous movements where he painted large areas of only color, called a color field, onto his canvas or board. As he painted, “unseen friends” would start to stand out to him

Carving Soap Sculptures | Free Family Funday | July 2022

Today we’re going to be carving our very own sculptures inspired by the work of Florida Outsider Artists George Voronovsky, OL Samuels, and Jesse Aaron. Each artist used non-traditional materials to form their sculptures - things like Styrofoam coolers, tree branches, and fallen logs in Florida’s forests.

Puffy Paint Party | Free Family Funday | June 2022

This exhibition celebrates artists working on the margins of society with an irresistible urge to create and for whom making art was as essential as breathing. It is a study in inclusivity and diversity, artists passionately engaged, finding solace in their art, creating a private reality, sometimes imbued with spirituality.

Kitchen Lithography | Free Family Funday | May 2022

Today, we will be creating our own prints and print editions using the methods of traditional lithography using Kitchen supplies as stand ins for chemicals. The project is inspired by the art and practice of James Siena, an artist known for his compositions that feature intricate patterns those found in nature and those made by humans. Working freehand Sienna creates paths and mazes, which result

Screen Print Flowers | Free Family Funday | April 2022

We’ve started the first steps of the screen-printing process but want you to know how to do it at home as well! First, we began by applying a light-sensitive green-colored type of paint over a blank silk screen frame. Then, we let it dry in a dark space overnight. The screen then becomes light sensitive and must be placed in a lightproof box until we are ready to add our design.

Melting Wax Paintings | Free Family Funday | March 2022

Diana Al-Hadid is a Syrian born artist known for her three-dimensional paintings and sculptures that are formed through melting materials like mylar and polymer one layer on top of another layer. She drips these into outlines of the recognizable buildings and subjects in paintings. This creates a visual collapse of art history and ancient cities.

Candy Crowns | Free Family Funday | February 2022

For February’s Art Project, we will be creating royal candy crowns inspired by the sugary sweet wonderland of artist Will Cotton’s imagination and his portrait titled Lollipop Crown now on display in Contemporary Expressions, Prints from Flying Horse Editions (1996 – 2021).

Blackout Poetry | Free Family Funday | January 2022

For January's project, we will be writing our own Blackout Poetry! Join us as we scour books and magazines for the words we want to say and add illustrations to give meaning to old texts.Blackout poetry is a method of writing a poem using only words collected from the page you want to work on and blacking out, or drawing over, the rest.

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