Discovery Center Learning Art and Great Artists

Every week my children and I attended some great little classes for home-based learners at a local community run school. Heck, I wouldn’t call this a school per-say, more like a small community that wants to encourage all children (whether homeschoolers or public schoolers) to be life long learners and not to be limited to what they can learn in “school.”

The Discovery Learning Center is a volunteer run non-profit, and I’m very excited to be one of those volunteers by running a new art class for them. Art and Great Artists starts January 20th and is aimed at kids aged 6-12. We’ll be starting out with one of my favorite artists Chagall.

Like I said, DLC is a non-profit. That means they rely on donations, and this has left them lacking in art supplies ( I know, I looked in their supply closet). I REALLY would like to make this art class great, and keep the prices low. I would HATE to have my kids fighting over glue sticks and paint brushes. So with that, I’m donating all my profits from now until Feb 28 2012 to the Discovery Learning Center for art supplies for all classes, and possibly if there is enough, to sponsor a family. This includes all my paintings at the January Mushroom Festival and paintings posted on Etsy and my website.

DLC is a really wonderful community that has been growing to serve even more children as a great learning resource, and I would like to see it continue to grow, especially in a time when it seems education is on the chopping block. The DLC of course always accepts direct donations and you can learn more about their program HERE.

Mushroom Fest Sneak Peek

I look forward to the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz’s annual Fungus Fair every January. This year I have been invited again to be one of their many talented mushroom artists on display for the month.

As always I paint 2-3 new mushroom paintings for this festival. Today is just a sneak peek of one of those new paintings, as they are yet unfinished…

The Fungus Fair is a fascinating event for all ages that includes lectures on identification, arts and crafts for the kids, and even some mushroom cooking classes (YUM!)

The festival once again takes place at the Louden Nelson Center. You can see the artists’ work up after January 9th. The festival it self is January 13th-15th. Click on the little poster below for more info and directions.