Comedian, Dave’s Joke of the Fringe winner, author and illustrator, Olaf Falafel has started a weekly 30-minute Art Club to entertain kids during lockdown.
Like his fellow comedians, Olaf’s live work has completely dried up because of Coronavirus.
“This is obviously a strange old time,” says Olaf, “we’re spending most of our time either doing Joe Wicks, home schooling our two daughters or social distancing ourselves from the fridge!”
“As well as being a comedian, I’m a children’s book author and illustrator, and, last year, I visited over 100 schools with my latest kids’ book It’s One Giant Leek For Mankind. I noticed that there are a lot of celebs doing online classes for kids, but no one was focusing on art so I decided to come up with Art Club - a weekly 30 minute art class done in my own unique style.”
Each episode of Art Club with Olaf Falafel airs at 11am every Monday. “We do a bit of drawing and painting, there are loads of jokes, we make stuff and we also learn about a different famous artist each week,” explains Olaf.
The first episode of Art Club had 455 people tuning in live (many of them were schools that had remained open for the kids of key workers), and it has now been watched over 5,000 times.
The second episode aired on Monday 13th April, with Magritte the featured artist and Olaf teaching the kids about surrealism! As Olaf invented truth telling cheese and Bee Gees hiding in beards the children could have no better instructor! And they learned fast.“I thought I was the master of surreal,” says Olaf, “but some of the Magritte tributes that I’ve been sent have shown me children are far superior - lobsters, broccoli, rubber ducks and underpants, anyone?”
Episode 3 airs today, Monday 20th April, here at 11am: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xscLEi447x0&feature=youtu.be - it includes a draw-along scene of a sausage bird evading a cutlery jungle, and Olaf will be creating a unicorn/dragon hybrid and showing you how to make a pair of Bridget Riley-inspired disco pants!
All episodes can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/OlafFalafel
