Alex Livingstone and I recently attended an art workshop with Mrs Whitson at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. 

The art workshop was all about Pablo Picasso and his artwork. First we heard from the guest speaker, Anthony Penrose who came all the way from England and his parents were family friends of Picasso. When Anthony was a boy, he met Picasso and they played all sorts of games together. Anthony even bit Picasso on the finger and Anthony wrote a book about it! Picasso loved to paint portraits especially his pet dog named Lump. Pablo said “When I was little I could paint like masters, it’s taken me all my life to draw like a child”. Anthony also talked about another artist called John Miro who would paint unusual children's pictures using lines and bright colours. After that we painted our own Picasso like work using pastel, dye and ink. I painted a lady which was similar to one of Picasso’s famous portraits and Alex painted a bull because Picasso loved to paint animals, especially bulls. Overall it was a really fun day and I learnt heaps more about Picasso and Miro.