Modern art camp lets us Paint, Paint, Paint

we spent a bit of time each day talking about the various artists --when they lived, what made their art be considered "Modern." We started the week with Jackson Pollack and his sidewalk creations. The campers first drew and painted bright geometric shapes then we dribbled paints over the entire canvas. Great results!

 We looked at a Nicolas LeBeuan-Benic nature print then did a tracing of the tree onto rice paper. The campers then painted the branches. The hardest part was convincing them to leave the branch tips in colored pencil. We sponged on multiple colors for the leaves using ball pouncers. We followed his design with reddish sunlight accenting the painting. Last step was to frame it with matting and a bit of accent. 

Drawing and chalk pastels are a hit with this group. I love the vibrant color even though they are a bit messy. We looked at Picasso faces and other faces then drew a self-portrait in either Picasso style or realistic. We then used the chalk pastels to paint our pictures blending with our fingers. These are sealed with cheap hair spray which sets the chalks well.

We talked about Chagall and his paintings of scenes from places he had been and liked that were a little more than life then drew our impression of his circus. We ran out of time to do the coloration on this one but the drawings were superb! 

We finished our day off doing modern designs on a reusable bag. I love having something useful to carry the projects home in. We reviewed a number of geometric and other "modern" designs then set out to draw and paint our own. I saw peace signs, swirls, electric penguins and lots more.

I was excited to find another way to do tie dyeing a few weeks ago that eliminates the need for a microwave oven. we prepared cotton socks in the usual way then using very watery acrylic paints we saturated our socks and created wonderfully bright socks and t's. They are a bit stiff when first dried but after a wash and a bit of fabric softener they will be fantastic. video is at: tie dye socks  tie dye socks 2

We ended the week with 2 drawing and painting projects. First we looked at pictures of Georgia O'Keeffe's gigantic flowers and western scenes. Campers picked which artworks to paint with the red landscape, large flowers and giant shells being selected. They painted on over-sized blue cardstock and the results were fantastic and not caught on film. 
Our final project was a Paul Cézanne watercolor of a bridge in the woods. Even though the kids have painted with watercolors before it is hard to convince them to not over pigment their projects. Lots of them got demonstrations on how to remove the extra paint and get the lighter airier look. Cannot believe how well they draw and paint!