Before looking at the artwork inside, my boys burned off some energy in the art museum’s courtyard. (We would never allow them to run inside!)

Early in the summer, I surprised the boys one Friday morning by saying that for Art Friday, we were going to our local art museum, the Georgia Museum of Art, which is located on the University of Georgia’s campus. I already wrote a detailed column about this museum, so check that, if you want to know more about it.

What I love about this museum is that it’s free admission (although you have to pay a little for parking), and they let you take photographs of their permanent collection. (Be sure to check rules about photography in any museum you visit.)

My husband I really loved Jay Robinson’s work here.

Except for this one photo, I’m not going to post any of the other photos because I’m not sure they’d want me to post them on Internet. What I do when we’re at a museum is tell my boys that I’ll take a photograph of their favorite pieces. And my plan is to look at them again when we’re at home and learn more about that artist, but we haven’t done that yet (ahem!).

I did take a photo of a piece of artwork by Georgia O’Keefe at this museum, however, and one day at home we read a book I have about her, and we looked at more of her artwork online. But that was my choice.

Both my boys can get tired in an art museum much faster than my husband and me. But I consider it lucky that they remain interested for any amount of time, and I know that by starting young, they will learn how to behave and will learn more about art too. My eight-year-old remains interested much longer than his younger brother. In fact, I think he likes looking at everything. He just wants to go at a faster pace and than my husband and me. He’s good about being patient, though.

As for my five-year-old, he might say he doesn’t like the art, but he’ll pick a dozen paintings that he does like and ask me to take pictures of them. He also loves the benches.