Painting a blue horse @ WBCL

"The artist who painted a blue Horse" one of my favorite author illustrators for all ages! We talked about how he creates his work then the group painted a horse in blue tones. They had a drawing of the horse without a mane so it was on them to add the mane. Of course several decided the horse had to have a tongue too! Fun project to do.

Registration open for remaining summer Art Mini-Camps

Art Mini-camp Give your child a week of intense creativity and the freedom to do art “their way”.

Juniors:  12-3:30 Tue/Wed/Thurs  Age 7 1/2 - 12 

July 12-14  Drawing & painting - We are going to draw cartoon dogs, a cat, paint a guitar, learn to create clouds and waterfalls,  and a martian or winged fairies.  They will do a Georgia O’Keefe landscape and glass painting. We’ll pull out charcoals, pastels, great paints and have fun with them. FULL
Photos of our art guitars

August 2-4  Lets imagine it/ lets make it (Our version WACKY science) we will explore our creativity and make things that move and interact like the rolling thunder explosion and structures that bend, kaleidoscopes, spinning things, pouring things. 2 spots

August 9-11 Design it and make it--bags and mosaics and jewelry and more. We’ll create our own designs and decorate the results 

Beginners: 9-11:30 Tue/Wed/Thurs Age 4 1/2 - 7

July 19-21  Artistic fun with Foods-FULL  would it be more fun to eat a salad if it were a train or a skeleton? we will eat some of our art at the end of each day—fruit pizza, train salad, make a recipe book, decorated plates for lunch.  

August 2-4  Wild n Waacky Arty science We will make our own fossils, investigate colorful chemical interactions, create crystals, make our own clays, and explore color. 2 spots

Join us for the art mini-camp program held in Wells  Branch and sponsored by the  Wells Branch MUD.   We pack lots of activities into each week of three 1/2 day sessions: painting,  drawing, 3-D art,  fabric painting, mosaics, clay sculpture, murals, art discussions, and stories. 

$45 per week per child. All materials included. 

Each week has its own theme. Enroll for one or several. Registration in person or by phone at the WB MUD  at 512-251-9814 or visit them at 3000 Shoreline Dr. http://www.wellsbranchmud.com/parks-a-recreation/youth-programs    Online registration is open with active net.

We are at the WB Rec center,  3000 Shoreline dr so it is easy to coordinate with swim team and lessons.

Camp is taught by Dianne Koehler

 Join us for the art mini-camp program held in Wells  Branch and sponsored by the  Wells Branch MUD.   We pack lots of activities into each week of three 1/2 day sessions: painting,  drawing, 3-D art,  fabric painting, mosaics, clay sculpture, murals, art discussions, and stories. 

$45 per week per child. All materials included. 

Each week has its own theme. Enroll for one or several. Registration in person or by phone at the WB MUD  at 512-251-9814 or visit them at 3000 Shoreline Dr. http://www.wellsbranchmud.com/parks-a-recreation/youth-programs    Online registration is open with active net.

We are at the WB Rec center so it is easy to coordinate with swim team and lessons.

Camp is taught by Dianne Koehler

Penguins and owls @ the library in January

We have had a lot of owl projects lately as they are easy to draw and lend themselves to a lot of techniques. We did screech owls tonight and painted them with palette knives using Basis paints with cornstarch added to give it a bit more texture. This group does so well, even the littlest ones. Gets a lot of moms drawing too.

Last night we did a drawing and painting project with penguins. At first I had planned a straight nature theme of a penguin family but that held no excitement even for me yesterday. Then I thought, why not have them being playful in the winter dressed up in caps and scarves? The kids spent almost 20 minutes drawing the 2 penguins. we talked about wing position to throw snowballs or ski or other activities and adjusted. Then we painted them. Lesson learned--washable black tempera is not black, it is green..grrr. Some of the kids got into spreading their paints around--"they are in an ice storm" some got excited about the colors (think pumpkin head instead of just a beak) Lots of talk about what was going on in their pictures. One of the penguins is even speed skating--you can tell who wants to be at practice.

Painting wolves with watercolor @WBCL

Last night we painted wolves in the Arts & crafts session. I found a nice picture of a pack of wolves that were not all snarling and printed it on watercolor paper. We did something a bit different by enhancing the lines with scribbles of black or brown color pencil then doing the watercolor using internet photos as a color reference. I would love to try this with watercolor pencils sometime but it really got everyone thinking of where to put their darker and lighter colors. Of course there are a few wolves of a different color and several of the older kids decided that a colored sky was essential.

Sand painted coral reefs

This class was one of the most fun ones I have done in a while. We had a small class but the results were amazing!! We started with a "draw with me" session using a book on reefs I got at the library. After we had drawn 4-5 coral and some fish the real fun began. 

We "drew" over our coral and fish one at a time with white glue then sprinkled on brightly colored sand, lots of sand to cover the glue well, tapped it off and did the next one and the next. Lots of parental help and help from us with the removal of the extra sand but the results were well worth it. 

 

Wild & Wacky Science art for Juniors WOW

We took a new direction and did some experiments, some art process, added an architectural project and did a rolling waterfall of color as our exploding paint. We started with a crystal painting project using epsom salt in super solution. Once everyone understood that heaving painting was required it really worked well. RECIPE [ 1 cup very HOT water, 1 cup+ epsom salts, food color or tempera paints] 

We did a project experimenting with how to use oil pastels and talked about why they reactions occurred then created a small picture. we used baby oil as our medium as it is more kid friendly than mineral oil or some other solvents. 
Clay is always popular at camp and we used plain polymer clay to make medians then imprinted them using small pinecones, shells and other natural items. The camper made them into necklaces, mobile hangers and more by painting them after we baked them  and stringing them onto cording. 
We tried out the chemical reaction between permanent markers and alcohol on a CD and although the kids were pretty pleased, I felt it should have worked better. The marker ink does spread and is fun to watch the changes. 
We also got to use stretchy clay to make critters. It was a bit older and does not really work well to stretch and pose. the critters they made pleased them though. It is much smellier than regular polymer clay. 

Wednesday we looked at structural items made from crafts sticks and talked about and looked at ones like the Eiffel tower. The kids then created some pretty impressive projects using the sticks and some other small wood pieces. Some spent most of the day working on it, others finished early and went on to complete other projects or lend a hand on one of the projects still under construction. 

We spent some of the last day creating airplanes from clothes pins, crafts sticks and helicopters from folded construction paper helicopters so we could fly them. flying helicopter http://babbledabbledo.com/diy-toy-paper-helicopter/  

The junior councellors went all out to get a project working to explode the paint. We tried film canisters of two kinds with their own tops and with corks to no avail. Then they lined up all the canisters and had the kids put in baking soda and tempera powder and slowly went down the line pouring vinegar into all of them. It is between a colored rolling waterfall and a skittles fountain. skittles fountain The kids love the reaction between vinegar and baking soda but without a larger bottle to blow due to the gas nothing blows up. 

Our last 2 projects were to use the styrofoam eggs and balls with ping pong balls and create an alien and make bouncing balls from borax and glue. Not sure which one was more fun but getting the large amount of food dye off the kids requires baby oil, dishwashing detergent and lots  of scrubbing plus some color theory on complimentary colors and why that helped get the color off more quickly, i.e. red on green. 

We have an album on Facebook with many more pictures for you to view. 

Wild and Wacky science art for beginners better than ever

We really stretched out this time to include new and different things for the kids and let them do many experiments with artistic involvement. You have to think about art being more than drawing and painting as we usually do. We included all kinds of home made potions and still managed to create quite a number of projects to send home.
The beginners got to do food color and celery changing color and loved it. We mixed homemade salt clay then made creations from them. The kids loved adding in the color and kneading the dough until it was ready to use. They were less sure about sharing their clay even to get a second color.
 
 RECIPE [ 1cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp oil, a little tempera powder]  

We drew hot air balloons and colored them by layering on tissue paper and spraying it with rubbing  alcohol. Turns out nice too. 


I brought leaves from my Turks cap to paint on the veined side and do color stamping with. Once the kids got enough paint on it really took off as they could stamp repeatedly with one leaf. The erupting paint was much more fun to make as everyone got to stir some of it up and add colors to it. It only foams for a few seconds but those were good seconds. RECIPE [ 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup baking soda, 1/2 cup or so water, food coloring]  


Our crystal painting got mixed without their help as it involved very hot water. RECIPE [1 cup HOT water, 1 cup+ epsom salts, food color or tempera paints] 
We tried out hand at making our own crayon scratch-outs and did not get them dry before the end of camp but the kid learned how to do it: RECIPE [heavily applied crayon on paper, tempera paint with dish soap applied heavily and let dry] 

we also did a magic milk experiment but thinned it a bit too much so we could not take prints RECIPE [milk, drops of food color, toothpick with dish soap on it] and lastly we made kaleidoscopes and straw airplanes that flew very well. Wish I'd cut the helicopters for the younger kids that we did in the older kids' camp. 

Stars & stripes week gets us ready for the 4th

Kicking off the 4th with STYLE! 
Lots of drawing the first day and the kids were up to it. We did waving flags that involved drawing cones then the stripes. we then painted them with glitter paint. 


We turned paper plates and long paper into great Uncle Sam tophats with lots of construction paper and stars. 



Our last project was to draw and finish out an eagle. some painted their eagle, some used feathers and some did a combination. Great eagles every one. 

Great work on the float. We had the kids vote on what the float would be, then draw and make all the components. Feathers take some time to draw and cut out!  They added all kinds of little details like the talons on the feet, great feathers for the head using white cosmetic pads cut to shape. 



We did a bit of drawing today too, a bit of fun stuff making lanterns and bracelets and a starry guy. 

The lady liberty was a 2-part project to make the fireworks then do a pastel of her.










The final day was full of fun stuff and completing the float. I did the basic  structural box to box and box to wagon but the kids and counsellors did all the rest. The kids made straw rockets and confetti poppers with lots of decorations on them. We wisely did not test the rockets until the end or they'd have been shooting them all day.

lots of pictures at Stars & Stripes art camp

Painting and drawing I—from traditional to modern

We started art camp off this summer with a trip back in time to visit ancient art, medieval arts and then moved onto the renaissance period and finally to more modern art in America. We started by looking at Egyptian and Greek pots then painting a story on a clay pot in only 1-2 colors. It is a bit of a challenge to limit the palette that much but they made it! 

We moved on to the medieval period and discussed lettering in bibles and important documents and how they were decorated by the scribes with scenes or items relevant to the person. We used wood blocks given to me by the HOTT tole painters group that we had primed in gold for the campers.

Our last project was a fabric painting of an ancient Indian elephant with a lot of gold trim. Because I wanted them to concentrate on drawing the details on the elephant and painting it, the pattern was on their fabric. 


2nd day we moved on to looking at and discussing impressionists, well known artists and pointillism. We started with a tape resist and did a finger painted Monet bridge in his garden. Some of them were not very comfortable with the finger painting only tapping but in the end most did pretty well. the magic was when we pulled the tape off. the oooh and aaahs!  
I pulled out a variety of cloth bags for them to chose from and we talked about Van Gough and his sunflowers. Everyone then got to draw and paint their bags. 

 Kat got to teach the last project today on pointillism using examples from Seurat. I had a variety of wood pieces and we had several different size items for them to dot with.

Our final day started with a Georgia O'Keefe type watercolor. We looked at a number of her paintings both of flowers and of other scenery. We drew the set of morning glories then did wet painting of them. Finally all the kids got how to add paint into the water on the paper and help it move instead of just painting  with the watery paints. Lots of oooh and aaahs on this too. We did a bit of salting at the end too. 

Kat got to lead the Chagall circus scene with the camp and probably got the kids to draw more intricate figures than ever. Yes there were monkeys hanging by their tails too.  The scenes were very detailed. We did colored pencils to complete this one.

Lastly we used an unknown artist as an example and did a very different technique with them. It is a tree with lights in it on a moonlight background. We used the four colors without cleaning our foam brush--scary to not wash your brush!! We then drew the tree in with lots of branches and did dot on dot for our lights. It was really quick and they did a fantastic job. Always goes too fast.

many more pictures at Painting and drawing I