Youngsters Put Unique Spin on Art

Maybe, if he had had a felt-tip pen, Vincent Van Gogh might have started this way.

Sunday, about 20 young artists and their parents gathered on the patio of the Ventura County Museum of History and Art to put on paper their interpretations of three still-life subjects set before them.

Over the next 75 minutes, the young artists contemplated a pot of fist-sized orange daisies, bananas and oranges in a bowl or a pile of squash on a yellow tablecloth. Then their interpretations spilled out in surprising variety--tiny squash in watercolor, oranges in crayon overflowing a page and mixed-media daisies in crayon, felt pen and watercolor.

It was part of the “Family Time” series, a free visual arts lesson held the third Sunday of each month for children age 3 or older to learn art techniques based on the museum’s changing exhibits.

Sunday’s lesson on painting still life took its theme from watercolors of flowers, vases, sleeping cats and palm trees by Ventura painter Susan Petty. Petty’s work is on display in the museum’s downstairs halls and galleries.

Inside, patrons strolled past Petty’s works while on the patio the budding artists listened to instructor Dass Richardson explain the definition of a still life, then each chose a medium--felt pens, watercolors or crayons--and set to work.

Some painted freehand, while the younger participants drew on paper pre-stenciled with outlines of Petty’s paintings. All had their own touches, as they added colors not in the original, drew monsters and dinosaurs or superimposed one object atop another.

“You have 20 people looking at that vase of flowers and 20 different interpretations,” said May Roque, 45, of Oxnard, who brought her children, Armay, 12 and Julian, 9.

Still life, said participant Amy Krumpholz, 9, of Ventura, is when you paint something that is still.

“You just look at it for a long, long time and then you keep drawing it,” she said.

Her friend Grace Ellberg, 9, added that there is no right or wrong.

Both girls drew freehand pictures of the vase of orange daisies, carefully centering their subjects in a style vastly different from David Saldana-Montgomery, 14, of Port Hueneme, whose avant-garde vase of daisies in bold colors was off-center, with empty space taking half his sheet of paper.

“I just made it up as I went along,” he said.

Armay Roque was making her second visit to Family Time on Sunday, and drew the same pot of daisies in fine black lines, then painted washes of pastel colors over each flower and the designs on the vase.

Was her inspiration Susan Petty? Paul Gauguin? The Pre-Raphaelites? No, she said. Japanese animation.

“I like the characters with the big eyes and the legs that are too long,” she said. She also likes to draw sketches based on comic book characters, Pokemon and Rugrats, she said.

So will the next Claude Monet or Pablo Picasso come from these lessons? It doesn’t matter, said Wendy Van Horn, the museum’s education director, as long as the children enjoy the art.

“They can come and draw and walk through the museum for free,” she said. “You show them what to do, they take off and absolutely just have fun.”