Elementary art goes a long way...

I went to the best elementary school ever. The older I get the more I realize my elementary school was so cool and so special. The teachers, the classes, the curriculum, the fun projects, everything was bigger than life and greater than you can imagine. It was obviously amazing if I am 22 and still talking about elementary school. But, it's true. Every time my brother and I are home and we are sitting around as a family, funny elementary school stories always come up. It really was the best school ever.

Part of my job at work is designing new things for our latest projects. I had to create a background to build off of but I didn't have a theme to work with for this project. I brainstormed a little and thought back to my favorite colors, objects, art, etc. This made me think of elementary school. Every year we got to do these great school-wide art fairs, and they were literally the highlight of the year whether getting to show off what you did or meaning that you were one year closer to being a 2nd grader doing the Impressionist period, 3rd grader doing the Baroque period, 4th grader doing the Renassiance period, 5th grader doing the Medieval period, or just like me who loved being a first grader doing modern geniuses...OH I just loved it: Georgia O'Keefe, Andy Warhol, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, etc, etc, etc.

My little daydreaming at work paid off and led to me creating a Piet Mondrian inspired background that WOW-ed the bosses and added a fresh new approach to our project.
And in honor of elementary school, I have to add the Matisse classic painting that was on our school t-shirt. Seriously, how cool is it that instead of having a mascot on our elementary school shirt, we had a Henri Matisse painting...and every student knew who it was!

And, let's throw in one more of my favorites...Pablo Picasso. I'm partial to him because I lived in his hometown for a couple of months, read his personal diaries, and saw a huge chunk of his original artwork in person. Viva Malaga!

I know I received my great appreciation for art when I was just a little kid in elementary school, but my art appreciation has gotten me a long way. It helps you become more cultured about things outside of your comfort zone, learn new things, grow a bigger imagination, or just help you come up with a background for a work project making you just as excited as learning your 1st grade art homework is coloring an Andy Warhol Campbell's soup can!

images: artsender.com, wikimedia.com