All about birds mini-art camp day 2

It was another day of day of nonstop drawing and creating. We discussed the various waterfowl in our parking in Texas, view photos of them on the Cornell site, then drew several of the waterfowl. The drawings of the heron, and egrets, and mallards were fantastic. They learned to transfer their drawings onto watercolor paper then did a watercolor painting of their mallards.

We also created songbirds from sheets of sheet music and mounted them on clothespins so they would be "note birds." During our last project of the day students elected several methods of completing their Firebird or Phoenix. Some chose to use watercolor, others opted for colored pencils or oil pastels. We took a brief walk out to the courtyard to see if we could identify any birds in our area then came back in and did a sketch of the ones we found.


click on the link to see more pictures of the day at camp:  bird camp day 2

Watercolor paintings of flags for Memorial Day

 I used one of the prints from the Picturing America collection (Childe Hassam's Allies Day May 17, 1917) as a starting point then had the participants draw part of the picture. Once they had their drawing done they colored it with washable markers and then sprayed the picture with misters to see how the colors would spread and blend. Lots of Oh, Wow and smiles on this one.

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Winter watercolor paintings @WBCL

Kids love to paint and wowing them with using watercolors always works no matter how many times they do it. The idea of the watery paint taking on part of the art just amazes everyone. This project used an interesting surface--the back side of packs of artist paper covers which is much like water color paper.
 I drew a general design of a landscape for them then turned them loose. They did the sky and dried it then the land and a river with a few trees. We added some great snowy white paint to finish the projects. All of them are a bit different and everyone was smiling. Parents are able to get into the projects with the younger kids too. 

Sunbursts, flying fish, Calder sculptures, and Picasso guitars @ 3D art camp day 3

Sometimes a project is just meant to be! This one looked attractive and had the potential for creativity so I scheduled it. What a great plan. We made the watercolor pieces earlier in the week then assembled our collage/paper sculpture of a sunburst adding paper curls and the results were definitely beyond what I expected. The kids liked doing the project and taught each other to curl paper and helped hold components so they would adhere to the paper.

We moved on to a sculpture in a can AKA Calder that is a lot of fun to do. We used tuna/cat food cans as a base with a styrofoam insert and clay over the top to seal it. We then created the sculpture from crazy straws, chenille stems, pompoms, beads and foam core cutouts.

Another project to complete was our paper lantern flying fish. This one kind of got away from us a little as we worked out the best way for everyone to create the fins and faces but in the end everyone had a fish and a huge smile. It was not as important to the kids that the fins be stiff as it was to the designer. It was a lot more hassle to attach the tissue to the thicker paper than to have fins that were a bit more loose. The loosest tail fin made of 4 pieces of tissue and no base paper actually looked wonderful and attached easily to the frame.

Our last project was a collage based on one of Picasso's guitar collages. We reviewed several that are one display at various museums and the discussion was centered mostly on the lack of color in them. Ours certainly did not lack color. We used a cardboard base and covered it with geometic shapes cut from scrapbook paper. we then added a foamcore chair and covered it with paper and ribbon. Lastly we added a blue denim guitar and embellished it with metallic thread, wire, buttons and other items. They turned out great.!

Watercolor Fall Leaves @WBCL

This was definately a project that got wows and oohs and aahs! We started with large sheets of heavy watercolor paper (120 lbs) and student tube pigments. Everyone traced around wooden leaves with the direction to have the overlap. Then the fun began.


We used foam brushes to wet the paper which was actually hard for some of the group. They kept wanting to take a paper towel and blot the water back off the page. Once they started adding a bit of color though, everything changed. Showing them how to make the color run by moving the paper and push it around with a brush turned them into Jack Frosts. Finally we used pallete knives to scratch in veins which got more oohs and aahs.


The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler. The program lets us turn donated materials and imagination into great projects.

You may also want to take a look at the new Art & crafts database the library recently subscribed to for the patrons. check  the library website for details.

Its a beach watercolor

Another great turnout for the Wednesday Arts & Crafts class! We used washable tempra paints to create watercolor beach scenes. This paint is great! It acts just like watercolors on the paper letting us make wave crests with Q-tip rub outs and blending colors on the beach. We used salt to give the sandy effect. One of the guys even put a shark fin by the wave that the surfers were trying to catch!