Kids & Art held a fantastic workshop run by artist Toby Cochran to create a special Budsies project.

During this event, the kids drew designs for characters that Budsies will turn into their very own plush toy! Alexandra Nagie (Development and Program Associate) and Sejal Desai (Operations Manager) started the introductions, greeting everyone with much excitement for this incredible workshop, along with Carmen Ericson (Program Manager) and assistant artists Janae Dueck (Volunteer) and Amy Bainton (Intern).

Toby gave an inspiring presentation about his company Big Grin Productions, and about other job experiences he has had as an animator and artist. He explained how all the different projects he works on have in common imagination and creativity. This presentation helped the kids to develop ideas to draw for their own creature. He really encouraged the kids to dream big and to come up with unique and imaginative designs, showing how different shapes and colors in a character drawing can represent their personality. This helped us to make a list of our personality traits and things we liked to do as inspiration for what we could include in our drawings. From his list of words, Toby drew several examples to show the kids how starting with one base shape can lead to several design ideas. They really enjoyed this and were inspired by seeing his creativity bring to life all kinds of different characters, especially his rendering of a slice of pizza wearing sunglasses while riding a skateboard!

Our volunteer Janae created wonderful monster examples for the kids to see, such as a dragon, a fish dressed in business attire, an octopus-dog, a smiling avocado complete with a top hat and shoes, and more! We then had some time to draw our designs, which all turned out wonderfully silly and creative! The kids and assistant artists had so much fun drawing characters such as a heart monster, a rainbow cat-llama and crawfish, a skateboarding taco, a basketball with a cool hat, a blue fuzzy cat, a race car, a cat-woman, a rainbow cloud, a superhero muffin, and a sweet monster holding a turtle, plus even more designs!

The Kids & Art Team was so impressed by the kids’ creativity and enthusiasm. The kids will send pictures of their amazing drawings to Budsies, and in a few weeks, after production and mailing, we will hold a Zoom party for them to open their boxes, revealing their wonderful plush toys! In this amazing opportunity to partner with Budsies, we had a truly wonderful time learning from Toby and spending time together being silly as we created a fun and lasting memory!

Artist Toby shared this with us-

My intention was to give all the kiddos a tool that no one can ever take away, not even cancer. No matter where they are, what they’re dealing with, or what’s going on in life, we all have this resource. And that’s our Imagination.

I believe that imagination is more important than knowledge, as many have heard that classic line, “knowledge is power” but that’s not true, it’s only power when we take action and what I witnessed during the workshop was kiddos taking ACTION turning their ideas into reality. I had an amazing time, I absolutely loved seeing the artwork come to life and the reveal party can’t come soon enough!!

Lear more about Budsies Pals and Toby Cochran

Artists come create with us and share your expertise with our pediatric patients. Support our mission to use the power of the arts and creativity to heal! – email: art@kidsandart.org