At The Fun Empire, we offer the standard acrylic paint and multiple sizes of paintbrushes; these are the essentials and are sufficient for your art jamming experience. I was in awe of a group of 40 odd clients from 3M who recently did their art jamming team-building experience with us. Now you must be wondering, what on earth did these guys do that impressed me? They were treated no differently than the rest of the clients, given the same materials as everyone else amongst our clients. However, they decided to think out of the box and utilised tools that were conveniently found around them or innovative methods to create their art pieces.

The shadow technique

The name I gave this technique sounds cool only because the actual usage of this technique is equally impressive. For this skill to work, it would require the cooperation of your teammates. So one member has to hold up the art canvas while another member simultaneously places the source material behind the canvas and shine his/her smart phone’s flashlight at the back of it. Doing so would allow the team to see the tracing of the butterfly, and replicate the outlines with ease. However, it must be noted that by doing this method, the traced butterfly will be the size of an A4 size paper. So either the team draws more butterflies to fill the canvas or if you want to have one giant butterfly you would have to print the butterfly on a larger paper so that when copied over, it still nicely fits the canvas.

Sponging

To my knowledge, their company manufactures sponge amongst other stuff, so they have plenty of sponge lying around. What’s more, they are dirt-cheap so it does not matter anyway. By now you must be thinking how is the sponge used… Well, I guess they found a more efficient way to paint the background colors than using the largest paintbrush we offer. Comparatively, the sponge offers a much wider paint area than the paintbrush. So this made the background painting (the green background) a faster process given that they were short on time. As a bonus, it happened to create a nice grainy effect on the background as well, so it was not only a faster method, it looked special too.

Finger Printer

What better way to print out cute tiny butterflies than two thumbprints cojoined together? All of us have our fingers at our disposal, capable of creating mini butterflies, but how many of us actually remember that they can offer so much more than just helping us use the paintbrush. In this light, this group did well to make use of the equipment around them or on them. Thus, they were able to paint out many small butterflies that look very much similar to each other, which no other groups were capable of drawing.

3D Effect?

For this technique, unfortunately, I could not stay behind to witness its success or failure. What the artist did was to paint one particular spot (the blue glowing effect on the wings) with a thick load of paint, so thick that it could pop out, creating a 3D effect of sorts. But this also means it will take a long time to dry which was why I have no clue how it turns out. But well, creativity points still stand for this group.

Let loose and enjoy!

Art Jamming provides a platform for teambuilding and it truly does jolt your creativity. The next time I head down to facilitate an art jamming session, I will be keeping a lookout for other hidden artistic talents that are out there, discovering new methods to paint in art jamming. Most importantly have a good time enjoying your time with the team.