Shepparton Art Museum

On Saturday 18 February 2012 the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) will reopen after eight months of a $1.98m redevelopment.

The new Art Museum will feature state of the art LED lighting, climate control and six new galleries to house its renowned collection. The reopening will be celebrated with a Launch Party on 18 February, featuring free SAM tours, live music, children's activities and much more:

- Guided Art Passport tours on the hour from 10.30am
- Curatorial floor talks on the hour from 11am
- Workshops with artists Tina Lee, Vipoo Srivilasa and Jan Donaldson
- Tours of the Little Treasures exhibition with Numurkah PS students
- Wandering Puppet Theatre - Bringing Longstaff to Life!
- Free face-painting
- Free SAM show bags
- One FM broadcasting live from 12.00pm to 3.00pm: Special reunion edition of The Adem & Tyler show

Workshops are free but places are limited to 8 children per workshop. Tickets are available from the SAM shop 30 mins prior to the workshop commencing. Children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

For more information please call (03) 5832 9861.

Looking at aspects of planning and delivery of the exhibition Portrait of a Lady curatorial staff will present an overview of the design, installation and conservation of art works.

SAM Acting Director, Ryan Johnston will lead a discussion about contemporary art, Pop Art culture and the plastic arts.

Curator Danny Lacy in conversation with Sam Jinks will lead a discussion that considers the nature of ‘hyper-real' art in evoking memory and emotions.

Art Museum staff will present four short talks on selected art works and themes with regard to both traditional and contemporary landscape views of nature and consider the use of the ‘bush' as a signifier of ‘Australianess'.

Age: 3 to 6 years. Places limited, bookings essential.

Sponsored by Relationships Australia, Rainbow Kids - Art for small hands provides an opportunity for very young children and parents, to join in creative activities at SAM. Designed to enhance and build relationships between one adult and one child this program shows parents how to provide low cost, accessible art-making experiences which can be repeated at home with their children.

Please bring your own smock.

Time together for families to relax at SAM and to play with clay. Get inspired by the exhibitions on show! See if you can respond to some of the unusual shapes and ideas of 3D art works.

Clay can be purchased in special take home containers and all tools are supplied on site.

Ages: 9 - 29.

Create amazing puppets from parts of toys; animal, mechanical and dolls. Come along and let your inventiveness and imagination take you to an imaginary world of mutants with a mania of madness and personality.

Please bring an art smock.

Working with experienced art educators children will view the exhibition Portrait of a Lady before embarking on a journey of self-discovery using texture, colour and expressive techniques with clay and 2D art materials.

Please bring an art smock.

Bits of this and bits of that! Rubber plastic, hair and fur; take time out with your family and put it all together with ‘bits' supplied inside the Sam Jinks exhibition.

Be inspired by the work of Sam Jinks and make your own ‘real' creation. Take a break and play at SAM!

Drawn from John Longstaff’s exhibition Portrait of a Lady, this intensive workshop program will engage participants in a range of approaches to portraiture using selected works as a starting point for sketching and painting. Participants can undertake a full one day, or two day workshop. Visual artist and educator, Salvina Conti has extensive arts education experience working in both secondary and adult learning sectors. Working in the Barwon-Otway region she has delivered a host of visual art programs for both beginners and advanced certificate students in life drawing, portraiture and painting.

Workshop 1 - Drawn (Thursday 12 April 2012)

Using a range of drawing materials participants will study aspects of proportion of the head, learn sighting and rendering techniques to achieve proportion, light and shadow in a selected view
and to achieve atmosphere and form in their composition.

Workshop 2 - Painted (Friday 13 April 2012)

Using oil paint from a ground colour up as a basis for learning gestural or painterly techniques participants will apply their understanding of texture and tone to create expression, atmosphere in a completed self portrait.

Please bring an art smock.

Learn how to facilitate the creation of amazing puppets from parts of toys; animal, mechanical and dolls. Come along and let your inventiveness and imagination take you to an imaginary world of mutants with a mania of madness and personality and learn how to encourage this in others. This is an opportunity to build your art and fun facilitation skills!

Finding common ground through making art together

Calling all English speaking people who would like to talk to new arrivals to our community who are learning to speak English. This program is designed to encourage discussion, interaction and communication between people from different language and cultural backgrounds while having fun together creating art. Come along with a light and open heart and get to know some new friends! Numbers in this program are limited and bookings are essential.

This program is sponsored by Relationships Australia and in partnership with GO TAFE Multicultural unit.

This six week ceramics program is designed to introduce participants who have previous experience with clay to develop specialised skills. Participants will experiment with working with porcelain using different techniques. Porcelain is an exciting but sometimes challenging medium to work with so bring your good humour, patience and tools if you have them.