All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I teamed up with LIFEWTR and 7-Eleven to help communicate their belief that inspiration is as essential to life as water! LIFEWTR partnered up with some amazing artists to turn each of their bottles into a canvas for new art. Their current series focuses on arts in education and features the artwork of 3 young artists. (You can learn more about their initiative to bring art back into the schools here.) After reading about these creative individuals and being reminded of just how important art education is in our childhood, I felt the need to experience something new and artistic with Nate. So, we decided to take a paint class together! I’m not sure why, but we’ve never taken Nate to an art class before, and after going to one, I can’t believe it was our first. He loved it! I think the fact that we had an instructor, there were other kids around, we got to do it together, and the fact that he had all the right equipment (easel, paint brushes, etc.) it made it feel more legit and cool to him…rather than just sitting down at the table with some paper and water colors. We both learned some new techniques and had a real fun time together. We’ll definitely be going back!
Nate was so into his painting class, he wanted to have another painting day at home once I got home from work. I always stop at 7-Eleven for a coffee on my way home, so while I was there I grabbed some snacks and these super vibrant LIFEWTR bottles that caught my attention. Nate loves when a water bottle has a sports top so he can squeeze it into his mouth, so I made sure to grab a few! At home it’s a little easier to get distracted, so we made sure we got him an easel, brushes, and canvas, to make it feel just like the class. We then took some of the skills we learned and used them at home to create some art for Mommy’s office. I love art and have always loved it, but to be honest, when it comes to drawing or anything related to art, I’m pretty pathetic (LOL). My wife on the other hand, as with everything else she does, is really good. I’m hoping Nate takes after her! It was fun to do this with Nate because Sarina (my wife) normally is the one working on all his art projects with him and teaching him, so it felt good to be the one guiding him this time around. She’s really good at teaching him and explaining things to him in ways that he understands and to keep him interested, and I really think she’s the one that is going to inspire him to be artistic. Back to painting! We know mommy loves her cactus, so we found a picture of one online and traced what we saw on the canvas. I thought for starters it would be easier to trace it, rather than freehand since I can’t draw and Nate, being the perfectionist he is, I could see getting frustrated with me (LOL). We then grabbed our brushes, filled up the paint containers, and pulled up the picture on our laptop. We started by painting the cactus green. It was actually Nate’s idea to use a smaller brush to outline it first, and then use a larger brush to fill in the inside. He definitely walked away from our painting class with some new knowledge! Once we let the green dry, we moved onto the pink flowers. Nate and I tend to goof around and get silly with each other a lot, and we had a little too much fun fooling around and bumped into the canvas and messed up one of the flowers. At first he was upset that it got messed up but quickly stood back and reassured me it still “looked cool” (do not tickle the painter while he is next to the canvas).
While we were waiting for our painting to dry to move onto the next steps, we took a LIFEWTR break. I was showing Nate the artistic labels and explaining to him that they were designed by students. As a 5 year old, you’re definitely not at an age where you’re too interested in art history or who or how something is created, but the fact that I told him they were students, actually grabbed his attention. He actually started asking me questions that I didn’t know the answers to, so we hopped on the LIFEWTR website to check our the artists’ stories. I think he was able to relate to them a little now that he’s a big boy and in school himself. I thought for sure he was going to like the bottle with the monsters the most but he was really into David Lee’s geometric design. He also liked that David was from LA (LOL). Overall, he agreed that these bottles were the coolest water bottles he’s ever seen!
We next grabbed our thin black marker and added thorns all over the cacti. Once we were done, Nate then gave it his final touch by signing his name at the bottom. He did learn that every artist always signs their artwork, so he did and presented his artwork to a very proud mommy…she loved it!
It was really great and refreshing to see Nate interested in something other than sports for a change. He actually wanted to keep going, so we grabbed the Scholastic/LIFEWTR pack and had some fun with their stencils. He refused to stop until he traced every single one!
This was such a fun project to work on and it made us break our normal routine and try something new together and I’m so happy Nate enjoyed it. Besides LIFEWTR keeping us refreshed and having super cool bottles that my 5 year old loves, they reminded us of the importance of “unleashing our creative potential”! You can find more LIFEWTR inspiration here.