We're really getting into the meat at Visual Arts camp now so I thought it would be a good time to share what my students have been up to.
Above you'll see the inside of the Emilson Arts Center which is where we are setting up for this week and next.
Unfortunately once it is finished being built (note the unfinished walls) in two years it will only be a theater :/
At least it is a REALLY nice theater. That huge stage entrance covered in plywood will be a big glass door that lifts in a week or two when they are finished cutting the glass.
These are the dollar store bins I am very pleased with myself for setting up. I feel that it gives the students a sense of belonging, especially at a camp where everybody is constantly toting EVERYTHING around with them in backpacks.
The first day we made sketchbooks and went outside to try out some nature drawing. It's kind of hard to see but the sketchbook on the bottom right is titled "Book of Wonders" so good.
Yesterday we began a weaving project, which blends in with the unfinished wall here, but is strips of brown paper hanging vertically from the stick for our warp and two more at the top and bottom for our weft. The brown paper has timelines drawn on them and the students could pick any period or amount of time they wished. This was a great project idea I got from my professor Melissa Chaney at MassArt and served as a perfect intro to weaving.
Later we moved on to more intricate weaving using six strings for our warp and one piece for the weft which zigzagged back and forth. (Note the nuts looking branches we decorated earlier in the Summer)
This was a frustrating project for many of the students as the warp pieces kept crossing and getting tangled. You can see above that I ended up having them fix the warp in place at the top and bottom for added stability.
Here is an example of one that was started yesterday and finished today, I should have taken more pics this afternoon while everybody was finishing up. There was something lacking from my teaching strategy for this project because I had several students who kept calling me over because of confusion or they thought they were doing it wrong... but they were actually doing it right! Is this normal? Any suggestions on what I could have added? There must be an in between step that could have helped transition from the Woven Timeline to this project. I did draw out a diagram and also started one for them to see and touch before we got started.
Today when everybody arrived to continue on with their weaving project it clicked a lot faster, maybe they just needed to go through that rough figuring it out patch yesterday. Everybody seemed to zoom right along and we had time to start planning for a big sculpture coming up as well as get into watercolors!
Although we are always talking about the color wheel today I really pushed it by only giving them the primaries on their palette. I didn't even get one complaint about this and was thrilled to see the imagination in color as well as subject matter.
It's hard to see in these photos but a lot of these paintings have salt on them so it will be fun to see the kids again tomorrow to watch them brush off the salt and reveal the surprise visual texture below!
The great thing about art camps like these are that the kids WANT to be there making art so I haven't had too many issues keeping people on task. When students finish early I offer them either an extension of the project they finished or to work in their sketchbooks. Probably once a day there is a point where students are running around but they are ages 8-11, I have them for three hours and it is Summer camp.. so a little running around is okay with me, it just cues me for a transition time.
<3
