KIDS + FAMILIES

April 3 is a Family Day at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 

As part of Family Day at MFAH, the museum’s education department plans an array of art activities, performances, films, and refreshments from 1 pm to 4 pm designed to give families an interactive experience, with an emphasis on current exhibitions.

Admission to the museum is $7 for adults and $3.50 for children and seniors. All Family Day activities are free with the price of general admission..

Come discover the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston inside and out!   Enjoy family flicks, sketching, storytime tours, and refreshments.  The family flicks are shown in Brown Auditorium Theater on the lower level of the Law Building.   Art activities are held in both the Law and Beck buildings, and refreshments are provided.

Sunday, April 3, 2011:  Pleased to Meet You: The Artists of Impressionism

Explore and make art, see a performance, hear a story, watch a family film, and much more!

Enter the world of Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt and Vincent van Gogh at the upcoming MFAH Family Day Pleased to Meet You: The Artists of Impressionism. Listen to Opera in the Heights perform a special selection of Impressionist music in the gallery, sketch the paintings of masters and listen to a storybook in the gallery featuring Vincent van Gogh. Create an oil pastel landscape inspired by Monet and learn more about the characteristics of impressionism at the family-friendly gallery cart.

Don’t miss Storybook Films for the youngest ones at 1:30 p.m. featuring animated adaptations of the popular storybooks Art, Ish, and The Dot. The Reel Kids film series at 2:30 p.m. features a showing of the French classic slapstick comedy My Uncle starring Jacques Tati.

All activities take place in the MFAH permanent collection galleries.

When: MFAH Family Day takes place 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 6; Family Activities 1:00 – 4:00 p.m., Museum hours are 12:15 - 7:00 p.m.

Where: Family activities will take place throughout the MFAH’s two buildings. The Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street, has free parking across the street. Call 713-639-7300 or visit www.mfah.org/planyourvisit  for more information.

Beck Building Activities -
Performance by Opera in the Heights
Second Floor, Gallery 214
2:00 p.m.
Listen to the beautiful sounds of impressionism at this in-gallery performance by Houston’s Opera in the Heights.

Sketching in the Galleries
Second Floor, Gallery 222
1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Pick up a pencil and sketch works of the impressionist era. An MFAH Teaching Artist is on hand with clipboards, paper and drawing materials at this informal program.

Lemonade Stand
Porte Cochere
Masters of Color: Gallery Cart for Families
Second Floor, Gallery 223

Explore the techniques Impressionist artists used to create their works on view in the gallery. An MFAH Educator is at the gallery cart with hands-on materials and activities to help you explore color, brushstroke, and more!

Storytime: Camille and the Sunflowers
Gallery 218
1:30 and 3:00 p.m.
An MFAH Educator reads this lovely storybook in the galleries. Meet Vincent van Gogh as he befriends a young boy in a French town. Then explore a work of art by van Gogh in the gallery with hands-on materials and looking activities.

Light, Color, Landscape!
Porte Cochere
Rain Locations: Lower Level, SW Bell Studio and Farish Classroom
1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
First, be inspired to create your own impressionistic landscape with oil pastels. Then be amazed as you see your work anew through a filter of color and light you build in the studio! MFAH Teaching Artists are on hand to get you started with materials in the Porte Cochere, just outside the Main Street entrance to the Beck Building.

Law Building Activities -
Storybook Films: Art, The Dot, and Ish
Brown Auditorium Theatre
Law building - Lower Level
Free with General Museum Admission
1:30 p.m.
Meet the young artists of three celebrated storybooks who, like the Impressionist artists, let their creativity and imagination guide them. Families with young ones will enjoy these animated films, adapted from beloved children’s picture books.

Art
Art, a young boy, joyfully draws scribbles that squiggle, splotches with blotches, zigs and zags, doodles and dogs, and so much more! Based on the book by Patrick McDonnell, with narration and music by the versatile Bobby McFerrin (6 minutes).

The Dot
Vashti may not be able to draw, but she can at least make a dot. When she sees the dot framed above her art teacher’s desk she decides that she can make a better dot. Soon Vashti is making big dots and small dots, red dots, blue dots and purple dots (based on the book by Peter H. Reynolds, 8 minutes).

Ish
With a little encouragement from his sister, Ramon discovers that creativity is about a lot more than getting things just "right." (Based on the book by Peter H. Reynolds, 9 minutes).

Reel Kids Film: My Uncle (Mon Oncle)
Brown Auditorium Theatre
Law building - Lower Level
Free with General Museum Admission
2:30 p.m.
Slapstick prevails in this French film when Jacques Tati’s eccentric hero Monsieur Hulot is let loose in the ultramodern home of his brother-in-law, and in an antiseptic factory that manufactures plastic hose. Tati directs and stars in the second entry of the Hulot series, a delightful satire of mechanized living. (116 minutes)