Summer Art Camp

Week Two - Wonders of the Natural World

Our inspiration for this weeks art camp was provided by forms of life that surround us ~ animals, plants and birds.

PLANTS

 Project 1 - Hand painted pottery garden markers

Before any art began, the girls and I discussed what different plants could be grown in a home garden.  With the summer growing season going on around us ideas flowed with little prompting.  For example, one could have vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, and squash.   Or a flower garden with daisies, sunflowers, roses and tulips.  With these examples in mind the artists drew and painted their designs onto a bisque garden marker.

The markers were fired in my kiln and are now ready to decorate a flower pot or small plot of land at each girls house.

  Project 2

Painted terra-cotta pots

   The artists painted the pot and saucer with acrylic paint, to help preserve the color the painted pots were sprayed with a clear varnish.

 

ANIMALS

Project 3

Self portrait with favorite pet

For our third project the girls drew a portrait of themselves holding one of their favorite animals.  The drawings included a few cats, a rabbit and a turtle.   The portraits were outlined with a black marker and colored with oil pastels.

The portraits were cut out, glued onto a contrasting polka-dot piece of  paper then glued to a plain piece of heavy duty art paper.  To finish off this cute piece of art the girls drew animal footprints around the edges, outlined them with a black marker and colored the prints with crayon.

 

BIRDS

Project 4 

Hand painted bird houses

 

 

 

 CUPCAKE TIME!!

 

 

And another week of summer art camp comes to an end with happy faces, a collection of fabulous art and hopefully a few lessons learned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Art Camp

Animal Love

What could be more fun than creating works of art based on the love of our furry friends?  Well, as we found out during a week of animal art,  dogs and cats can provide quite a bit of entertainment to any creative endeavor!

 FOR THE LOVE OF PETS POTTERY

This weeks clay project was to hand form an animal face bowl from a slab of clay and to create garland using animal shaped cookie cutters.

Tying painted and fired animal pottery pieces onto a string of twine to create the garland.

Absolutely adorable animal face bowls - handmade and painted by camp artists.

PET PORTRAITS

 Pets were also the inspiration for our painting project.  The artists used various shapes to sketch out an animal portrait onto a 16x20 inch canvas. 

The portraits were outlined with a thick black sharpie and painted with many layers of acrylic paint.

FINISHED POTRAITS

 FOOTBALL ON THE BEACH

 RUNNING CAT

LAB AT THE BEACH

CAT ON A FLYING CARPET

GREEN EYED KITTY

PLAY BALL

ME AND MY PET

OIL PASTEL PORTRAITS

All this animal love was the motivating force behind our next project - the artists made a portrait of themselves holding their favorite animal.

The artists drew their portraits onto a piece of art paper, outlined the portrait, cut it out and added color with oil pastels.  The finished portraits were glued on to a 12x12 sheet of decorative paper.   A white border was created by gluing this 12x12 piece to a larger sheet of white paper.  A few shapes were cut and glued around the border for an artistic pop of color.

SELF PORTRAITS

 ME AND MY CAT

 RED HEAD WITH CAT

 MY KITTY AND ME

 HAPPY PAIR

 BUNNY AND ME

ME AND MY BLACK CAT

AND FINALLY...

CUPCAKE TIME

As the week comes to a close, the artists enjoy their handmade cupcake cones out on the deck.

Summer Art Camp - Week Two

All about Me!

 What could be better than creating works of art centered on you and what you love?  The theme for my second week of summer art camp was "All about Me".  With this theme the artists and I had an opportunity to explore a rather self centered idea.  The young artist talked about themselves and discussed what they most enjoy doing.  These passions were then designed, drawn and painted into each students art work.

PROJECT I

Pottery Portrait Plate

For our first project the artists sketched a portrait of themselves performing a favorite activity.  The room was unusually quiet as each student recreated a favorite past time onto their bisque plate.

The artists painted their portraits with pottery glaze and signed the back.  The plates were fired in my kiln,

and are ready to be filled with favorite treats and fun things to eat!

PROJECT II

Portrait in a mirror.

Our second project was a portrait of the artist seen through a hand held mirror.  

When working with a plain white canvas the first step is to cover the whole canvas with color.  In an art class focused on you, this covering should be your very favorite color, and applied in whatever manner you deem necessary.  Whether that is through painting the background in organized, straight lines, big splotches of color, or with organic and animal shapes.

Once the background was finished, we discussed what a portrait of a person would look like from behind.  Would you see their face?  What would the back of their head look like?  Would it be covered with hair, could you see their ears, what about their neck, and how wide would their shoulders be?

After much dialogue and a wee bit of modeling, the artists drew themselves from behind, adding ears, hair, a neck and wide shoulders.  Off to one one side of the face the artists traced around  their hand and added an arm.  Once the drawing was finished they went over their pencil lines with a black sharpie, just to make the lines easier to see when painting the portrait.

Paint was applied in layers, beginning with the darkest color then gradually dabbing and stroking lighter color on top for texture and highlights.  As the artists painted I took pictures of them.  The images were cut into a circle and glued onto a mirror shape.

The finished portraits of fine artists looking at themselves in a mirror - a reflection of line, color, texture, shape and talent!

SNACK TIME!!

 For snack we headed into the kitchen to create everyone's favorite dessert - cupcakes!  Each artist put on their pretend chef's hat and took part in the creation.  First adding the cupcake mix....

then one, two. three eggs with a little egg shell thrown in for any vitamins and nutrients that might be lurking within...

 a little bit of water and some yogurt to sweeten the batter, mix thoroughly, pour into cupcake tins, cook until done...

and devour with great gusto followed by smiles of a satisfied chef!

PROJECT 111

Photoshop Portraits

The last project involved the artists, a camera, a computer, a little photoshopping, crayons and the artist's imaginations.  First the artists pretended they were participating in an activity they love - ballet, boogie boarding, rollerblading and yoga - then posed in that position.  I took their posed pictures, worked with photoshop to make their portraits look like a coloring book image, cut out the figures - which the artist colored with crayons.  Lastly, the artists drew and colored a background scene and we modge-podged their portraits onto the background.

ART SHOW

 The end of the week art show is always a joy to see as proud parents, grandparents and siblings gather around to view the incredible art created by a talented group of artists.

And the artists walk away knowing a little bit more about art, a little bit more about themselves, and with some awesome portraits created in various mediums.