Jazmine Meza pressed a pink crayon into a picture of an elephant that she drew on a small square of sandpaper until her fingertips turned white. Her nose was inches from the table, and then the crayon snapped in half.
“It’s hard to get enough color on the paper without breaking the crayon,” Meza, 9, said. “I’m getting better at not breaking them though. It’s delicate.”
Meza was making a sandpaper print by caking crayon wax onto a piece of sandpaper and then having it ironed onto white paper during the Art Stop on the Go program inside the Anythink Huron Street library in Thornton.
The workshop is taught by a gallery artist from Boulder, through a partnership with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Art Stop on the Go was created by the museum seven years ago to provide free, hands-on art making for local students at their community libraries.
The program started touring around the metro area in Adams County about three years ago. Last month, it doubled its partnerships by expanding to five library branches in Douglas County: Castle Pines, Lone Tree, Highlands Ranch, Parker and Roxborough.
Art Stop on the Go is now offered at 11 libraries in Douglas, Jefferson, Adams, Boulder and Broomfield counties.
“We are really excited for this size of expansion,” said Nicole Dial-Kay, education coordinator with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. “It was a big undertaking, but the program has been so successful at the other libraries that we wanted to put the program in as many as possible.”
Each month, an artist-instructor from Boulder creates an art lesson around a children’s book that they read to the kids, and then they lead a workshop that focuses on artistic concepts.
“It went well the first time last month,” said Kerri Morgan, program and events supervisor for Douglas County Libraries. “We had between 10 and 20 participants last month, and we expect it to grow in popularity.”
Art Stop on the Go is designed to be an advanced (but still elementary level) art class. For most lessons, students wrap up the project by symmetrically aligning their prints on a piece of paper and expertly signing their work on the bottom front of each piece.
“We wanted it not to be a craft-making experience, but something that is actually a pathway to arts in high school and college and even as a career possibility,” Dial-Kay said. “We work with each educator to discuss lesson plans and incorporate different mediums into each session.”
Aly Nack, 24, is the resident artist who runs the Art Stop on the Go program at all Adams County branches. She has 20 classes per year at each library, and said many of her lessons roll out of her head after she finds a children’s book to base it on.
“It’s a very good marriage of art and literacy,” Nack said. “Last year, we read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and made water color prints of butterflies.”
This year she’s planning lessons around sculpting with beeswax and making cave drawing replicas.
“I love working with kids,” Nack said. “One time, a girl came up to me after class and asked me how I became an artist, because she wants to go to art school and be an artist someday. That really warms my heart.”
The resident Douglas County artist-instructor is Cheyenne Bsaies. Bsaies works in sculpture, installation, technology art, drawing and painting, among other things. There are 66 programs scheduled in Douglas County through December.
“It’s an excellent and unique program that actually merges literature and art together,” Morgan said. “When kids hear a story, they see a visual illustration of that story and then they create their own art along that same theme or mode of artistic expression. It’s a higher level of learning.”
Megan Mitchell: 303-954-2650, mmitchell@denverpost.com or
Spring art stop on the go schedule in douglas county ( registration required)
Castle Pines: 4 p.m. on March 2, April 6, May 4
Lone Tree: 4 p.m. on Feb. 17, March 17, April 21, May 19
Highlands Ranch: 4:15 p.m. on March 11, March 18, March 25, April 1, April 15, April 29, May 6, May 13
Parker: 4 p.m. on March 9, April 13, May 11, and 10 a.m. March 21
Roxborough: 4 p.m. on June 2, June 9, June 23, June 30, July 7, July 14, July 20, July 28
