Over the weekend, in celebration of the art museum’s new exhibition, Take Two: George Catlin Revisits the West, we hosted a children’s workshop. Through sketching and painting activities, participants spent time considering George Catlin’s role as recorder before mass photography, documenting the great American West during his travels in the 1830s.

While in the galleries, docents discussed traveling artists in the 1800s and how the act of documenting what they saw contributes to our American History today.

After learning about Catlin, everyone received a canvas travel backpack and sketching supplies and undertook the role of recorder as they traveled the gallery to document with their new art tools what they had seen and learned.

The adventure continued in the studio classroom where participants created their very own scene in paint inspired by the collection and their sketches. In addition to their sketching supplies, each student received a take-home painting kit complete with brushes, acrylic paint, and painting paper.