Hi everyone,

Happy September! Hot Pizza’s schedule this month looks so different than the summer, and we’re excited for all that’s coming up: multi-week courses for kids & adults (registration is ongoing!), weekend classes, a movie night, birthday parties, private events, our first school field trips of the new year, and more! Julia and I and our artist faculty are excited to reconnect with people we haven’t seen since spring and to welcome so many new friends and families into the HP community.

We believe art makes life bigger. Your interest and support means we can offer even more chances for all of us to make things we didn’t know we had in us.

Below, info on some one-off classes, including a new block printing offering, and a few fun web links to share with the kids during this last week before school.

Stretching so I’m ready for the marathon,
Brian (and Julia)

Take home a bunch of portraits of you. Yes, you!

See the drawings taped on the wall in the GIF above? That’s the output of just one Speed Portraiture workshop, and we’re doing another next Saturday, September 12. Practice drawing with others! Make a new friend or two! You don’t need to know how to draw—seriously! It’s a purely fun, pressure-free chance to see ourselves and each other in all our richness. At 1152 College St.

Next Saturday, you say? Yes, I’m game →

New class on the block

Sarah Aranha, who has led many watercolor sessions at HP, returns for the new season with a fun block-printing workshop. Come play with pattern, color, and cloth in this hands-on session, where you’ll learn to design an image, carve your own block, ink it up, and print repeating patterns onto fabric. Channel your inner Phyllis Barron or Maija Isola. No experience needed! At 134 Osler St.

Block the evening of Saturday, September 26 off in my calendar →

Links for idle hours

OK, parents, I’ve got you: healthy(ish?) screen time for these last few hours before school begins next week, straight from the stash I keep for our two kids.

• One Day On Rails. Watch the world’s rail networks light up across a 24-hour day.

• The Phone in Your Hand. Your phone is the most intricate machine you’ve ever held. Let’s take it apart.

• Box Squad. Randomly generate line-art characters. Move their limbs around. Don’t forget to flip the “twerk” switch.

• Play the cello. Help Viola the Bird play classical-music favorites, or go freestyle.

• Flag Quiz. Use emoji to learn over two hundred flags.

• World License Plates. Ever wanted to know what tricycle license plates in the Philippines look like? Or those belonging to the Belgian royal household? A huge, eccentric archive by a guy who obviously … loves license plates.

• River Runner. Drop a raindrop anywhere on the United States and watch where it ends up.

• Watch a cruise ship get built in this seven-minute time-lapse video.