After a full week of masterpieces & master artists, we ended the week with
a focus on George Seurat. So the kids started making their own versions
with a lot of stippling & paint. The kids worked on ceramic tiles with acrylic paint
to create  simple Pointillism Puzzle as their final project of the week!
The kids LOVE doing Seurat… and painting with Q-Tips!!!

My camp kids this week thought they were free from school.  Ha!
That summer camp was just going to be a bunch of fun – and no learning. Ha!
Well, they were wrong. And what could be more fun for a bunch of 8-12 year olds
than some Art History?!

After they finished glazing their clay pieces on Tuesday, we shifted our focus to some
famous master artists. Some of the biggest names, some of the biggest masterpieces!
Flash cards and a little friendly competition always gets the kids excited about
memorizing some names, artworks and tidbits about each artist.

After learning about some of the top artists, we had then do a little still life of their own.
They sketched them, then they painted them. We helped teach them some basic skills to
help create their own masterpieces. Then today, we shifted once again… and they had to
re-create the same still life image “in the style” of the famous artists. Which included
using different materials and techniques to best “mimic”  the famous artist’s style.
Some were painted, some were pastels… some were stippled, some were splattered!
Markers, crayons, paints, colored pencils, pastels, ink pens and more to make their art.
Each kid had the chance to tackle five different artists… randomly drawn of course.

Ask the kids, and they all now know the following sixteen famous artists!
Salvador Dali                  M.C. Escher
Frida Kahlo                     Paul Gaugin
Georgia O’Keefe             Al Hirschfeld
Roy Lichtenstein             Henri Magritte
Piet Mondrian                 Claude Monet
Pablo Picasso                 George Seurat
Toulouse Lautrec            Vincent VanGogh
Wasily Kandinsky           Jackson Pollack

This morning was hot, humid… and the air was very thick.
I was already sweating as I stepped out the door. But it was worth it…

At one point, I even questioned if it was drizzling?!
Or could it just be the 6,000% humidity?

And when I turned around to pedal home, there were a lot of clouds brewing
out west and headed our way. Right now… about a half hour later, there’s a
typhoon going on outside!!! Glad I made it home before the sky opened up…

Tonight in class we focused on making bowls on purpose…

…and not a cylinder gone bad. So I demonstrated how to make a basic bowl.
Followed by throwing eight bowls, then demonstrating some quick techniques
for simple designs, patterns & styles to make their bowls special. Anyone can
make a plain round bowl… but it’s more fun when you make it your own
with a little design along the way! Texture… pattern… slip… fun!

So the cylinders are not quite so bottomless anymore!
Thanks to a couple free hours between summer camp & my adult wheel class.
Now they’re “ovaled”… as well as stamped and slab bottoms attached.
The bottoms still need to be smoothed out & finished, but they’re one step closer!

Another week at camp – another group of kids!
This week it’s Clay & MultiMedia; which means a clay project on Monday.
And then other clay projects throughout the week. So we started the week today
with leaf impression plates! We went for a nature walk and “borrowed” a few leaves
along the way. They then made slabs, pressed in their leaves, painted a layer of
underglaze and then carefully pulled out the leaves – leaving the texture & outline
of the pressed leaves in their slabs.

Once the underglaze “dried” enough not to be “smudgey,” they then turned them
into plates by creating a coil frame to use as a slump mold. Tomorrow they will paint
them with clear glaze. And then by the end of the week… they’ll get their finished plates!
And here are my demo plates… also waiting for some clear glaze & kiln time!

Back in the studio and making bottomless cylinders.
Don’t panic… it’s just Step One.