Riker Ing usually spends time at The Cube skating on the ice and playing hockey.
On Sunday evening his visit was a bit different. He had a paint brush in one hand, and a cup filled with paint in the other.
The 4-year-old let his creative freedom take charge and began to splash paint and doodle throughout the large white canvas, which was the entire ice rink itself.

“It looks like a potato!” he said, pointing at a large blue blob, and laughed.
His mom, Elizabeth Ing, was doodling a large cat on the ice as he enthusiastically placed different colors anywhere close to his reach.
“My mom and me keep changing our [paint] colors … I can also mix … it’s fun!” he said.


The Cube welcomed families to its inaugural “Paint the Ice” experience, where over 150 participants transformed into artists and spent an hour doodling all over the ice rink and drew images such as flowers, smiley faces, self-portraits and anything else their creative minds could come up with.
The person behind the idea, regional director for The Cube Darin Mathewson, wanted to give back to the community with a free, fun, and unique experience that the rink usually doesn’t provide.
“All these color [paints] that you have on the ice are what we normally paint the lines of the actual rink with, but we’re now using textiles. So we don’t use any paint anymore,” he said. “Because I have all this paint left over, I said, ‘Let’s do something fun.’”


The Cube will have a new ice refrigeration plant scheduled to be installed sometime later this year, but before that, they had to do some additional work, therefore the rink will be temporarily closed for five days, he added.
“They’re used to skating on the ice and doing what they do best on ice, which is perform, skate, play hockey, and now they get to come out and do another [form of] art,” he said on witnessing the children tap into their creative abilities.
Janine Prado, director of recreation and community services for the city of Santa Clarita, came to support the fun event and happily witnessed the numerous smiles and hundreds of drawings.
It was a great way to welcome families and children who don’t skate or participate in other activities involving the rink to come in an experience something new at the facility, she said.

