Family Saturday at Home: My Week

Art makes people optimistic about their future, it can record a message of inspiration, and be a visual form of communication between people. Whilst we can be inspired by other people’s art, how do we start to make art ourselves? Many artists use their lives as the inspiration for their artwork. For this Family Saturday at Home we will focus on what it is like to be where you are right now.

You will need:

Paper
Scissors
Drawing and writing materials

Activity 1: Why don’t you make a visual diary?

This can be:

A way to make the mundane more fun
An exciting way to document your creativity on a daily basis
A space to document your experiences
A personal space in which to create new or recycled images by experimenting with different techniques and materials.

Your diary can contain a variety of images but each day record something that you have noticed in the world around you, or capture a feeling or response to your day – it should be something that you have done to stop yourself from being bored. For example: you may draw the meals that you eat each day, make a daily drawing of something from your favourite TV programme, characters from the games you play, a study of your pet, or collages of pressed flowers from your garden. You could do anything; it is your creative space, but the format should be one thing each day for a week.

1. Make your sketchbook
Hold a piece of paper landscape format and fold it in half lengthways. Open it out again and fold it in half the other way, open it out again and fold the edges into the middle. Now you will have 8 equal shapes. If you stand it up on a table, it makes an ‘W’ shape. Hold the middle fold and using scissors, carefully cut a straight line, as shown on the picture. Hold the fold on either side of your cut and pull the sides downwards, folding them against one another. Flatten the sides together and shape into a book with 8 pages.

2. Write your name and the date on the front, decorate it however you like

3. Make a drawing per day
If you want to make more, you can bind each sketchbook to the next to make a bigger book. You could do this using tape or, if you can, you could sew the pages together. How long can you keep your visual diary going? What will it be like to look at it again in the future when you are older? What will is say about your identity in 2020.

We would love to see what you create!
Can you photograph your artwork or ask someone to help you? Here are two easy ways to share your artwork with us:

Tag us on social media using @hauserwirthsomerset (Instagram) or @HWSomerset (Facebook) and use the hashtags #FamilySaturday #HWLearn

For more activities visit: The Royal Academy: Family how-to: photograph, paint or collage a portrait Natural History Museum: Make Your Own Nature and Art Journal Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Make Art @ Home –

Family Saturdays have been a popular monthly event at Hauser & Wirth Somerset and Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. As we embark on our new shared reality, our education team will continue to create activities connected to our exhibitions and artists – encouraging practical hands-on tasks and imaginative narratives to enjoy together as a family.