As the sun continued to rise, the sky changed from pink to orange.
And things were “lining up” quite nicely for a spectacular sunrise!

So

A beautiful morning with a pink glow on the horizon. With potential for more to come…

So my niece Taylor has one week of “freedom” left before she goes back to school.
Her mom has already started teaching so she’s spending some “quality time” with her
Grandparents… my Mom & Dad. So we decided to take her on a little adventure to
Six Flags Great America. Fully knowing that it was going to be a LONG day…
especially for Grandma & Grandpa as they get dragged around the park and
“cutely cajoled” into going on many of the rides!

We started the morning with an easy one… the landmark double-decker carrousel.

From the top level of the carrousel, Taylor spotted Daffy Duck & Scooby-Doo,
so when the ride stopped, we had to run over to meet them for a little photo-op!

So we all went on the Whizzer… a gentle little roller coaster to gauge Taylor’s readiness
to tackle the bigger rides. She did wonderful… my Mom, not so much. She was done with
the roller coasters! Taylor, on the other hand, was ready to tackle the American Eagle –
the iconic wooden roller coaster with the huge vertical drop!

Here we go… up the first big hill…

And then the big plummet… squealing like a little school girl the whole way… adorable!!!

She loved the first big plummeting drop… but then she saw the big curve coming up…
and then rickety bouncing that she wasn’t so thrilled about.

So the held on for dear life… as Grandpa watched from the seat behind.

Whew… she made it. Thrilled… and more than a little exhausted…

After her whirlwind ride on the American Eagle, Taylor chose a few “slower” rides which
Grandma was okay with too. Even though there was no plummeting drop, the rides did spin,
fling & whip around in circles pretty darn fast!

Of course, a trip to Six Flags Great America wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory
stuffed animal win at the game arcade. In fact, Taylor won this one for herself…
use the hammer, hit the target, ring the bell, win a prize! Luckily, we found one that said
“play until you win.” And she did…

Another morning with perfectly clear skies… and an other simple sunrise.

While other sunrises are just simple & clear…

Some sunrises aren’t all that spectacular. Pretty… but not stunning.
But the natural transitions that play out across the sky are always fun to watch.

Last Tuesday, I did some repeat demos for my class for those that missed them
the first time… or didn’t find them quite as easy when they tried to do them!
Totally fine by me. It’s their class and I’m more than willing to demo whatever they want.
And now I find myself with another demo platter thrown and waiting to be stamped.
Well, tonight was the night. First, I started by unwrapping the original platter which was
finally to a good state of leather-hardness to be stamped… just a little softer than
“trimming leather-hardness” typically is.

Then I start by making the first row of impressions with the chosen stamp pressed in one,
by one, by one, by one… again, and again, and again… until you get all the way around
to the other side! And I always have my fingers crossed that they’ll line up just fine!!!

Then it’s time for a second row of stamps to start the pattern…

After a couple more stamps, and a few smaller accent stamps at the bottom of each point
and the stamping portion was done.

Then it was time for a little rim fluting & curving to give the platter a gentle undulating
design. A simple touch to give the platter a completely different look.

Here’s a close-up of the curved rim – just before wrapping it up with plastic for the night.
So now it’s a waiting game until it is dry enough for trimming.

As this week quickly came to an end, my campers were working hard on their masterpieces!
Our terra cotta picture frames came out of the kiln and we still needed to paint them gold.
You know that every masterpiece needs the perfect frame. So we went out into the back
alley behind Lillstreet to spray paint them all metallic gold.

As the kids finished their paintings, we started setting up their Gallery Show. So we put
together their paintings with the piece of the still life that were working from. For their
Mondrian-inspired piece, we talked about how they needed to use the color palette from
their flower and express it with proper proportions & color theories.

Once the frames were dry, we started inserting their paintings into the picture frames.
Like these paintings done by the kids in the style of Georgia O’Keeffe.

Plus their paintings in the style of 70’s pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.

Or a still life painting in the style of Vincent Van Gogh…

We finished the day by creating a Gallery Show of their masterpieces. We invited their
parents, friends and other summer campers to come through to see their exhibit.

Each of the kids were encouraged to take their turn as docent to give their guests a tour
of the show. While showing people around, they explained the inspirations and how they
made each piece. Explaining how the style of a Master Artist had influenced their paintings,
and how they worked that influence into their own works. They also found it great fun to
quiz the adults with the same 25 Master Artists that they had learned throughout the week!
I’m sure they weren’t too surprised to find out that very few people knew as many artists
as they did!!! Always fun to see kids excited about Art History!

And with that… my Summer Camp “tour of duty” for this year is over.
It was such a pleasure to end the summer on such a high note… seeing that the kids have
indeed had a great time and learned a little something along the way. And had fun too!!!

It was such a great surprise today when I turned the corner…
and there stood my sister Jen and my favorite niece Taylor!!!

Now Taylor is no stranger in coming to the studio, but she’s new to Summer Camp.
So there I was with my roomful of “Masters” campers trying to get everything done
and ready for lunch – when they showed up out of the blue! Apparently, they had an
appointment in the city that had been mis-scheduled. So instead of 11:00am, they
were on for 2:30pm and needed to kill some time. So they decided to surprise
Uncle Gary and show up unannounced. It was such a great surprise for me… plus,
Taylor & Jen got to hang out with me and my campers on the Lillstreet rooftop deck
for a leisurely lunch!!! They even got some homemade brownies from Judy, one of
our other summer camp teachers, who had a few extras from her camp – huge bonus!!!

As the sky began to brighten and the low-flying clouds took on a beautiful pink glow

When the pink colors began to fade, the sun continued to rise and the clouds began
to sparkle with beautiful golden highlights.

And then it finally happened… SUNRISE !!!
After a strung of gloomy, gray mornings, we finally got treated to a nice sunrise morning.
Still nothing too spectacular, but a whole lot better than the grays we’ve been having!!!