Paint Party Field Trips With New Bern Christian Academy

This year we have had the honor of serving New Bern Christian Academy, a private christian school on old cherry point road,  by hosting their students for some wonderful painting field trips!

Chris Mathiot, Painting instructor, explains why these events make such wonderful, educational field trips. "We teach them art projects while they are creating." He says. "They get to work with real, high-grade materials. We guide them through a process that they can repeat when they make other things."

Every grade at the school does two field trips at Bear Hands, "One is in ceramics, and one is on canvas," Chris explains. We go to the school for the kindergarten field trips, our operation is pretty mobile.

Students learn how to mix paints, clean brushes, make different kinds of brushstrokes, create definition in their paintings with contrast and outlines, and more.

Most of the field trips take place on Tuesdays during the school day. The kids take the bus to our location and we have a classroom area all set up for them. We provide all of the materials, set up, and clean up. Its not a difficult operation. I've taught a few of the younger grades, and the kids are very receptive to the process.

Today we painted sheep with the 9th graders!