Using Smell jars this week prompted ideas of what we can draw that depicts certain smells. I brought in a basket of jars filled with different natural materials that contain different scents, this included oils, and plants, and dried things like beans. I was encouraging the EarlyON artists (children) to draw the literal items of what was in each jar onto pages of paper with printouts of empty smell jars just to encapsulate the energy of each item. The artists ended up absolutely loving the smells I brought and cinnamon was said to be some artists’ favourite smell ever.

I thought it was beautiful to see them drawing endless cinnamon buns that looked super delicious onto their art pages, the drawings of good smelling items were so infectious you could almost smell their drawings by just looking at them, this was amazing, but after creating great smelling jars I had the idea of doing smells we don’t like as much and one artist was immediately inspired to draw as many gross things as she could think of relating to smells she’s experienced before depicting a stank diaper and gross pee in a coffee, it was so disgusting that you could smell this “smell jar” as well, seeing it paired next to the good smelling jar was like seeing polar opposites, night and day. I learned a lot from this day with the EarlyONs, that you can make beautiful art out of your favourite things, and at the same time make art out of  some of the most nasty gross things you can think of, and that in itself is the experience of art and life, good things exist with the bad things, if you can focus on the good things in life, it can get even better, and vice versa.