CALGARY -- She’s not an expert in technology but Christin Dewald knows art. She owned an art studio in Inglewood and now she has a small business in home decor called Little w Studio in Chestermere.
Her home business is slow right now and isolation related to COVID-19 sparked an idea. She’s offering on line classes through Zoom three days a week for kids from three years old into their teens.
“I think it’s pretty amazing that technology met us at COVID,” said Dewald. “Because we have this opportunity to connect that we wouldn’t had ten years ago.”
Dewald spread the word through social media and now has upwards of 100 participants joining each class. Zoom only lets you see 25 at a time so 16-year-old Caroline is helping her mom with the technology.
“I just make sure all the kids don’t have any questions or if they do I tell my mom,” said Caroline. “I can help them show their art, I can talk to them in the chat.”
People are connecting from her home community of Chestermere and as far south as Texas. Dewald likes to interact with individual children by saying their name and seeing each creation after the 40 minute class one by one.
“(I want) to make sure they feel known and loved," said Dewald. "With art I can do that because as they achieve the directions I give them - I can encourage them and tell them how cool they are and then we have this rapport that’s really fun."
Parents say their children like taking part in the free classes. Five-year-old Cooper gets better with every class.
“Cooper loves to colour and draw normally so it’s really nice to have him engaged, she’s (Christin) so great with chatting with him and saying his name and he just loves that so much,” said Cooper’s mom Lindsey Merkley.
Isla, who turns eight April 6, doesn’t like to miss an online class.
“She is obsessed,” said Brittnay Koloa, Isla’s mom. “It is her favourite time of week - I accidentally missed last Friday and I heard about it.”
Four-year-old Blake puts a lot of effort into his drawings.
“The first couple of classes we took, I had to help him a little bit more by showing him where the lines should go but now he’s doing it all by himself,” said Blake’s mom Rebecca Szybunka.
Dewald says it’s easy to offer the classes for free because she’s just putting in her time and only using a little bit of paper. And she gets a lot out of the classes too.
“The best feedback that I’ve been given (from parents) is that ‘I just had one whole hour to myself’ and that’s awesome, I’m so happy to do that,” said Dewald.
Learn more about the free on line art classes here: www.littlewstudio.com
