Open Studio From Home:
Charles Henry Alston
Sat, Apr 24, 2021
11–11:40 am
Charles Henry Alston, The Family, 1955. Oil on canvas, 48 3/16 × 35 13/16 in. (122.4 × 91 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art; purchase, with funds from the Artists and Students Assistance Fund 55.47
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Online, via Zoom
Families with kids of all ages
You are invited to Open Studio From Home, free weekly online art classes with Whitney educators! Participants will experiment, create, and learn together with at-home art materials.
Charles Henry Alston created this family portrait in bold blocks of color and lines that he made by scraping the surface of the paint with a palette knife—a tool with a blunt steel blade that artists often use for mixing or applying paint. His painterly style is both figurative and abstract. Alston wrote that this painting was “an attempt to express the security, stability, and human fulfillment which the ideal family represents.”
Together we will create colorful scratch boards. Then, we will make bold scratch art family portraits!
Materials:
- Thick paper or card stock
- Crayons or oil pastels
- Dish soap
- Black tempera paint
- Thick paint brush
- Small container
- Something pointy (a chopstick, paperclip, or skinny stick)