Young people from southeast Saskatchewan had their artwork on display Sunday at Alameda School during the art show hosted by young people who are a part of the Swallow’s Nest studio.
Judy Swallow, who operates Swallow’s Nest and serves as the instructor for the youths, said they had lots of interest from the public. Not only did the friends and family of the 30 participating artists turn out to look at the artwork, but the general public wanted to see the art as well.
“It was incredible,” said Swallow. “There was a huge variety of stuff that was displayed. One of the groups of kids had created game boards. Others had made a study of humans, so there were human figures and human faces, that sort of thing. There was lots of landscape pictures, 3D works, character drawings, inspirational drawings that are transfers … so there was a huge variety of stuff.”
There were traditional mediums as well, such as pencil prism colours, oils, pastels, acrylics, melted crayon transfers and more.
Each young person could submit multiple entries.
“That varies, too, because some kids will work on one piece more methodically, and others are quicker with it. Some of them are sketches or inspirational pieces, so those move quickly. And then they can develop them later if they decide to.”
Students start meeting in different groups once a week in September. Classes are one or two hours, and some are on weekends.
The children are very motivated, and they’re able to complete their artwork in varying amounts of time.
“It’s not a lot of time to create a piece of art, and yet these guys do it,” she said.
While most of the kids are from the Alameda area, Swallow has students from other southeast communities.
Classes continue until mid-December, when they break for Christmas. Then they resume in January and occur until the art show.
“The groups normally stay the same, so the kids when they come in these groups, they work on their work periodically throughout the season,” said Swallow. “But usually they stay with one subject and work with that until they’re done, and then they move onto their next subject.”
Students help with the setup and the installation of the art show. The show was well supported by the public.
It’s not a competitive show, she said, but the students are always motivated to improve.
“They chuckle at what they used to do,” said Swallow. “They see their own development, so it’s pretty cool. The nicest thing for me is when kids are looking at each other’s artwork, commenting on it and supporting them, I don’t think there’s anything better than that. And it encourages them to do a little better with their own art when they’re seeing what the other kids are doing.”
