Engage with art through play, and let your imagination run wild!
Check out the activities below and learn to play with stamps and printmaking, challenge yourself with a “spot the difference” game, stretch yourself like artist Evan Penny, create your own artist trading cards (with a Surrealist twist!), transform a simple box, build your own playground and much more. And remember, creating a perfect final product isn’t the goal. The goal is pure creativity.
Don’t just make art. Play with it!
Who likes stamps? We do! And we bet you'll love playing with printmaking too. Watch AGO Artist Instructor Melissa Pauw use household objects to create your very own art prints with your family and friends.
Grab a camera or a phone and get inspired with AGO Artist Instructor Amanda Arcuri to play with reflection, scale and stretch yourself in new and wild ways!
TRY THE ACTIVITY HERE (PDF 397.08 KB)
Wednesday July 15th 10am
Learn how to bring play into the creative process of drawing! Join Tiana Roebuck, Associate Curator, Studio Programming and Learning in conversation with special guest, Ani Castillo, a multidisciplinary artist and cartoonist featured in both Mexican and Canadian newspapers. Ani’s first book, Ping, was selected by the CBC as one of the best books of 2019 and she'll share her tips and tricks to draw awesome characters and play with drawing at home.
What does this landscape painting of a summer day by Group of Seven artist AJ Casson and this box have in common? They’re both made out of cardboard!
Why paint on cardboard? Artists like Casson sometimes painted on cardboard because it’s inexpensive, you can cut it to any size, you can find it almost everywhere, and it's light and easy to travel with. Take a look around your home. See that cardboard box in the corner? Don't ignore it, play with it! Sure you could paint on it, but how many different ways can you experiment and reinvent a cardboard box?
We bet there are a million (and one!) ways to express your cardboard creativity and here are 20 of our favourites.
TRY THE ACTIVITY HERE (PDF 560.72 KB)
Alfred Joseph Casson, Canadian, 1898 - 1992. Lake Rosseau, Muskoka, 1927. oil on cardboard. Overall: 23.6 x 28.7 cm (9 5/16 x 11 5/16 in.) Gift from the McLean Foundation, Toronto, 1961. 60/16 © Art Gallery of Ontario
Take a close look at this awesome poster from the exhibition Illusions: The Art of Magic, on now at the AGO!
Adolph Friedländer, Comedians de Mephisto Co. Allied with Le Roy-Talma-Bosco, 1905. 186.5 × 266.5 cm. M2014.128.318. McCord Museum
We've played with it a bit! There are 12 differences between these 2 posters. Can you spot them all?
1. cat replaced rooster, 2. tiny devil added, 3. missing bird, 4. bows changed colour, 5. water changed colour, 6. added bird, 7. missing design on fan, 8. missing feather, 9. twisted tie, 10. missing ring on bucket, 11. owl added, 12. title changed colour
Adolph Friedländer, Comedians de Mephisto Co. Allied with Le Roy-Talma-Bosco, 1905. 186.5 × 266.5 cm. M2014.128.318. McCord Museum
Play the afternoon away in your very own shadow puppet theatre! Watch Tiana Roebuck, AGO Associate Curator, Learning & Studio Programs, make paper shadow puppets inspired by Toronto artist Ed Pien. Instead of drawing on paper, try drawing WITH paper and create your own shadow puppets using recycled materials found at home.
Transform paper into a miniature 3D Playground! Experiment with templates created by AGO Artist Instructor Olia Mishchenko, inspired by the AGO’s Grange Park playground and the works of Henry Moore and Yayoi Kusama. Play with spirals, geodesic domes, accordions, and sphericons and cut, fold, and glue your very own miniature playground!
TRY THE ACTIVITY HERE (PDF 796.86 KB)
Surrealist artists made art by combining unexpected things together. Check out these surrealist inspired artists trading cards where a pair of lips can have eyes and polar bear can wear a suit! Collage and draw miniature works of art that you can trade with friends and family! Make a limited edition card series of your very own.
TRY THE ACTIVITY HERE (PDF 475.97 KB)
Canadian artist Jill Crossen-Sargent created abstract works of art that remind us of the inside of a computer, or a microchip, or even pixels (the little squares that make up a digital image). Get inspired by her piece Space Alterpiece No. 1 and create your own Post-It Pixel Art!
Jill Crossen-Sargent, Canadian, born 1930, Space Alterpiece No. 1, 1968, plastic and aluminum. Frame (integral): 60.4 × 60.3 × 3.3 cm (23 3/4 × 23 3/4 × 1 5/16 in.) Gift of Jill Crossen-Sargent, 2005 2005/125 © Art Gallery of Ontario
Wednesday July 15, 4 PM
Hey adults! Are you interested in gaming and art? Check out AGO Let’s Play a series of discussions that investigate the intersection of art history, game arts and design. In this first episode they’ll talk with scholar Paolo Pedercini and discuss a pioneering work of game arts, SimCity (1989).
Show us your AGO Makes: Summer Edition artwork and join our online gallery!
What does your final composition look like? What would you try if you did it again? Share it with us at #AGOmakes @AGOToronto
