Insects-bugs, butterflies, bees Day 1 @ WB MUD

Today started off raining but that did not phase our artists. We worked on a lot of different kinds of bugs--insects and arachnids--drawing them, gluing them, painting them and examining them. I was lucky over the last week to find a lot of different bugs to put into containers for camp. I know the kids get to look at pictures at school but there is something super fun about looking at real ones. Each camper was given a magnifying glass to use in examining the bugs--butterflies, moths, a moth chrysalis, a beetle, a pair of stink bugs, and a few clay bugs I made up yesterday. We also have a great supply of books from the library to look at and use for reference.
We spent time drawing several of the bugs--trying to make them realistic as possible. The littler campers did fingerprint bugs too. All of them made bug jars from spice jars and pompoms. we will use them this week to store the bugs we catch. We also fashioned bugs from plastic eggs and glitter foam sheets. Kids do like glitter, so much that the dragonflies got a good coat of glitter paint to customize them. Only 2 more days to go.

Drawing & Painting art camp is a hit @WB MUD

Today was fantastic in getting to know our campers and what they like to do with art. We started with some special paper and fluorescent markers to do our interpretation of Picasso's guitars from his musical period. The markers develop over an hour or two into very intense colors. We reviewed the drawings at the end of the day to many WOWs. Great variety of guitars from the group. We then switched to drawing and painting on a small fabric bag. Neighbors shared beautiful shells for camp so we had them on the tables as reference. It is harder to draw from a 3-D object than a flat picture. They then painted them with fabric paints and except for a few "baths" the projects came off without a hitch. Kids learned how to get just the look they wanted on their bags. Tomorrow we'll add small shells. Our last project was taking sheet music and drawing stories on it. I found this on Pinterest and have to love the Russian art movement producing them. The kids started on their folder covers and some free draw time plus a session of "draw with me" of a very fat fish with fins. Got in a bit of commercial and science about fish to boot.
Here are links to the facebook albums until I can finish the camp pages. We have had so much fun this week and are looking forward to the remaining weeks of art camp. Space is still open in all camps.  Painting & Drawing art camp day 1   Painting & drawing camp day 2    Painting & drawing day 3   

Making TP tube animals @WBCL

 It is fun to look for ways to use household items more creatively and TP tubes have has no end of uses. I did up some examples to start the project and pulled up a couple of bags of scrap fun foam and tiny pompoms. I purposely left mine uncolored or decorated to get them to use their imaginations and they really did. Parents hot glue parts for the kids or with the kids and sometimes did cutting. A great group project.

Paper castings @WBCL

 Trying to do a bit of a different kind of paper project with this one. I used donated white envelopes and popped the paper into the vitamin to make the pulp before class so I could drain some of the water. In class we had the families chose which cookie cutter they wanted to use and spooned the pulp into them. The kids and parents pressed the water out using their fingers and sponges until the paper pulp was as compacted as they could get it. We then sprinkled the project with glitter and gave each one last press to embed the glitter, transfered the project to a paper towel, and removed the cutters. The casting dries in a few days and can be glued to a card or hung.

3D butterflies and bees mixed media page @WBCL

I did a  sample of this page for an online class and thought the kids and parents would have fun with it. I ran off pages made from stamped butterflies and bees that they could coulor or use as is and showed them how to layer them onto the page. Great use for the donated rainbow paper. I also found some foamy stickers to fill in the extra spaces and give the project even more dimension. 

Jeweled flower pots @WBCL

 "Not your same old painted flower pot." While the kids do not seem to mind doing the same projects many times, I get an urge to introduce them to other ideas and this flower pot project did that. I drilled holes in the plastic pots before class then had them make a hanger from 3 chenille stems and use string to loop around the top border with beads along it. Finally they were able to add a few gems to really put on the sparkle. Lots of smiling faces.