Monet, Manet, and Me

I was always under the impression I should become an artist. Not a poor, starving artist and certainly not a quirky, eccentric artist. But an artist of grace and beauty like Claude Monet or an artist of talent and vision like Edouard Manet. You know Monet. We remember him best for his Water Lilies, Japanese Garden Bridges, Early Morning paintings, and more; a French painter, leader of the Impressionist Movement, and precursor to Modernism. And you know Manet for his Folies-Bergere, Boating and Lake scenes, Luncheon and Garden paintings, and others; a French painter too and the father of Modernism, considered to be the pivotal figure in the development of modern art. I wanted to be like them or, if not them, perhaps like Renoir or Degas or even Seurat.

Being an artist is glamorous. I love the idea of standing before an easel, wearing a Basque Beret and a paint-splattered smock holding in one hand a palette of colors, an assortment of flat, fan, round, and bright brushes, and, in the other hand, mixing colors with a palette knife and now dabbing, brushing, feathering, stroking, and blending those colors onto the surface of a blank canvas. And the radiance of Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, Cobalt Blue, Viridian Green, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Titanium White, and others; oh, the delightful fragrance of oil paints, turpentine, linseed oil, and damar varnish. And then there is the light, a perfect light to paint with, a light shifting colors and intensities and moods. A perfect light shimmering a still life, illuminating a lovely landscape, a perfect light softly shining and glowing for a portrait. Simply glamorous being an artist.

But then there is me. I’m not French. So that’s my first disadvantage. Second, I don’t have a smock or a beret or an easel or a palette. What’s more, I can’t draw, I am Alizarin Crimson / Viridian Green color blind, I color outside the lines, and I am not careful with my crayons always breaking off their tips or accidentally snapping them in half. I press down too hard. In fact, my big box of 64 Binney and Smith Crayola crayons are a mess, a torn flip-top lid, a clogged built-in sharpener, and the box is missing I think five, no wait, worse than I thought, it’s missing eight colors. And yet there is still hope for an aspiring artist like me and you if you want to play and have fun. The hope is at the IMAG History & Science Center’s hands-on activity called Draw Alive.

Draw Alive is an interactive digital drawing studio for aspiring artists of all ages. Individuals decorate, color, and create, for example, different animals like fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and even dinosaurs on templates. They scan their artwork, the computer animates it, and then it comes to life on a large screen in one of several animated, themed environments like lions in the jungle or stingrays under the sea or dinosaurs from long ago.

Some Draw Alive animated environments include safari scenes, farm scenes, an alpine forest, the airport, a jungle, marine life, and other wonderful scenes. I like the dinosaurs. Picture, for a moment, marine life. We’re under the sea, It’s beautiful, serene, absolutely delightful. Sunlight is filtering through the water. Do you see it glistening? Now, over there, there is a sunken ship, an empty pirate’s sea chest, some aquatic plants, a bit of coral, and a number of marine life swimming about. It’s an exquisite depiction of marine life. Then, in the upper left of the scene, you notice a pipe. It looks like a drainpipe. You think it’s unusual in this environment. You wonder what its purpose is. And then in a flash, out of the pipe, a decorated seahorse swims into the scene.

That’s Kristin’s seahorse. She wrote her name next to her artwork. See it? And yes, her seahorse is pink with yellow polka dots and fuzzy green hair and a blue tail. Swimming now with the other marine life and now a sea turtle named Buttercup emerges from the pipe. The sea turtle is bright orange with blue stripes and black squiggly lines on its shell. Who ever heard of an orange sea turtle? But there she is, gliding under water with other fun, inspired, creative marine life. Draw Alive is a learning and discovery studio that combines inspiration with imagination with real-time animation. And now, other fish, stingrays, and sea life begin to populate the scene as people create and scan their art, each uniquely designed and colored, each named like Slimy or Grouchy or Fishy, each signed by their artist. Look! Here comes Ashley’s stingray in zig zag purples and reds with a yellow stinger. What fun. And now another seahorse with rainbow colors and a decorated flounder with stars and stripes and a puffy blue and pink fish emerges from the pipe. That’s Pinky Blooper swimming about.

Sparking the imagination, Draw Alive encourages creativity and hands-on play as well as digital engagement; it offers a unique blend of art, technology, and fun for aspiring artists. While Draw Alive is not to the level of a Monet or a Manet, a Degas or Renoir, it is inspiring, it is imaginative, it engages our creativity. And besides being fun and playful, what makes Draw Alive an important and valuable activity is that the experience might be one the moves, touches, and inspires a child, at any age from 3 years to 103 years, to live into their dreams and pursue their passion for art. Best of all, the easel and beret and smock are optional.

The IMAG History & Science Center is located at 2000 Cranford Avenue, Fort Myers, Fl 33916. For more information, 239-243-0043 or theIMAG.org. The IMAG is open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Sunday from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM, and closed Tuesday.