Moving forward in CHESS CAMP… taking a break from making chess pieces to painting the boards for them to play on. First side of the checkerboards… getting started… and hoping to clean those lines up a bit with the second overlapping color!

Hard to believe that we’re already in the last week of Summer Camp… ending on a high note with my favorite CHESS CAMP!!! With each kid making their own thematic chess set out of terra cotta! Lots of parts… lots of pieces… and hopefully a LOT of “scoring & slipping”. If not, we’re going to be in a LOT of trouble as these pieces start to dry!

Starting out the morning with clean reclaim buckets… as Nate volunteered to press all of the dried reclaim terra cotta through the grate on top… as intended. I love when my Summer Campers just start volunteering to do projects around the studio making it a better place for everyone. As though they’re part of the community. Taking one for the team. Now if we could just get some more of the adult students to follow Nate’s lead… wouldn’t THAT be great?!

Lots of kids, lots of cleaning…
Summer Camp Rule #3 is still working well…
“Whatever mess you make, you will be cleaning up.”

And the cuteness factor continues…. thank you Erik!!!

So it’s another week of Wheelthrowing Summer Camp… and another week of “covered” CUTENESS!!! I mean, really… pretty darn cute even with hands covered with a gloppy-goopey mess & half of her face covered with her yellow mask!!!

When new clay meets “graveyard” reclaimed clay during Summer Camp!!! So my wheelthrowing campers “recycle” their bad & shmooshed pots by slightly drying them out on plaster bats and then wedging them back together with some new clay! Looks like it might be another Marbled Monday!

We’re nearing the end of Summer Camp… only two more weeks… and some of the markers have seen better days. So this morning, when two of my campers came a bit early, I had them “volunteer” for a task… and they tested all of the markers!!! Throwing away the ones that were dried out. So much better now…

A little early-morning Summer Camp still-life…
red & ready… the calm before the storm!

We started the morning yesterday with some of my Summer Campers scraping & cleaning the ware boards they had uses the day before. No one likes a dry crusty ware board… wouldn’t it be nice if EVERYONE would do this before they put the shared ware boards back on the racks?!

Enjoying a little sunshine this afternoon lunching on the Lillstreet Rooftop with my Summer Campers… along with a black swallowtail butterfly who seems to be enjoying his floral lunch as well.