Creative kids

The city is teeming with so many artistic outlets for youngsters this weekend, they’ll never get bored.

Friday Evening

The nonprofit Theatre of Hearts/Youth First organization, which provides year-round art classes to urban youths ages 7 to 18, is throwing an opening reception for an exhibit of student work, “Cool Art ’97.” Before they started on their projects, many of these budding artists had never even been to a museum. The 5:30-9 p.m. reception will feature a musical performance by students from South-Central’s Ascension School Summer Camp at 6:30 p.m. at the Site Gallery, the Brewery, 2100 N. Main St., Space A-9, Los Angeles (north of downtown near Union Station). Reception: adults $10, children free. General exhibition Saturday, Aug. 15, 16, 1-5 p.m. Call (213) 384-6878.

Saturday

The Los Angeles Children’s Museum is a bonanza for would-be architects to create a Lego city, future painters to adorn themselves with washable face and body paint and young recording artists to play in a professional sound studio. The museum also has a Recyclable Art Studio that hosts all-day arts workshops every weekend (Saturday is recycled jewelry day) and a Recycle Market where kids can fill bags with fun stuff like ribbons and feathers, spools and cones, old film cartridges, tubes and pieces of fabric and foam so they can create at home. Bags of materials are 25 cents to $5. Los Angeles Children’s Museum, 310 N. Main St., Los Angeles, (213) 687-8801. Admission $5.

Nearby, in downtown (and in a dozen other locations), California Pizza Kitchen offers crayons and coloring books to little ones as well as pint-sized pizzas and pastas. Wells Fargo Center, 330 S. Hope St., downtown, (213) 626-2616.

A fun any-time art project for kids is painting ceramic pieces at Color Me Mine. It’s easy to walk in and paint (open noon-11 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-10 p.m. Sundays) and all the supplies are taken care of. It’s $6 an hour to paint. Pieces cost between $1 and $50; to glaze and fire is $1 to $3. Color Me Mine, 8715 Santa Monica Blvd., (2 blocks west of La Cienega), West Hollywood, (310) 652-3265, and 10 other area locations.

Sunday

Sunday is arts day in Barnsdall Art Park, when the Hollywood Arts Council and the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department sponsor the 13th Annual Children’s Festival of the Arts. There will be face- and hand-painting; a puppet theater workshop; a hat-making workshop; spirit medallions workshop; magic with magician Howard Jay; Korean, Mexican and Native American dance performances; and music by the Middle Eastern Koroyar Musical Group. All workshops and performances are free. Call (213) 485-4474 for information. Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd. between Vermont Avenue and Edgemont Street. Free shuttle from Kaiser Permanente parking garage adjacent to Barnsdall Shopping Center (near Vermont and Barnsdall avenues).