The Wapakoneta Family YMCA now offers an art club for children.
“We're just really trying to build our programs that are directed toward kids, and I've had several kids that had an interest in art club, and so we decided it goes along with our mission statement of healthy mind, body, soul,” said Lindsay Zielonka, youth sports and teen coordinator. “We don't want to focus just on the sports part of it, and I think this was a great first expansion on the mind and the soul.”
The first meeting of the art club was held on Oct. 8. The goal is to study a different artist each meeting, so the first was spent learning about Monet. Their art project was then to copy one of his pictures of his water garden, she said.
“We left it up to the kids,” Zielonka said. “We wanted them to do their interpretation of it, and so we did a crayon, watercolor mix, so that the crayon kind of popped out under the watercolors. We kind of gave everyone free reign.”
She is running the art club along with McKensie Simons.
The art club meetings are held the second Saturday of each month. The next one will be held Nov. 12. Students will learn about the artist, Matisse and create large body traces. So far, the art club has been a hit.
See the full story in the Thursday, Oct. 20 edition of the Wapakoneta Daily News.