On Wednesday, my Summer Campers switched their focus to their large scale sculptures. We discussed their ideas, the postures, the armatures & how they were going to tackle the project. We constructed most of the armatures out of boxes, wire, cardboard & dowel rods… and then covered the armatures with newspaper & masking tape. The goal was to get them as “identifiable” as possible at this point… so that the layers of plaster gauze to come would solidify everything & give them a surface to add more details & paint later.

This past week at summer camp, I taught a class called “SCULPTURES SMALL TO LARGE.” So we started the week with a fun clay project… constructing thematic terra cotta birdhouses and painting them with colorful glazes. It was a great group of kids… including two that had done the camp before, and came back for another round of Sculpture Camp with ME!!!

So this week’s Summer Camp is culminating this afternoon with a very special SCULPTURE SHOWCASE… a “gallery” showing of my summer campers’ large sculptures & ceramic birdhouses. If you’re anywhere near Lillstreet Art Center this afternoon, please feel free stop by Room 304 from 3:00-3:30pm to see the kid’s artworks! They’ve been working hard all week… it’s a great group of kids making some GREAT sculptures… and I’ll have plenty of photos to come!!!

This past week in Summer Camp, my kids were Wheelthrowing for the most part… but on Thursday my morning kids switched to handbuilding. Sure, they “could have” made anything, but I gave them a challenge. I told them that I wanted them to make two mugs with a theme that ties them together. Some of the themes they chose?… cookies & milk… fruit & veggies… earth & moon… dragon & dinosaur… cat & dog… and so on…

Once the mugs were built, the kids then switched to painting them with colored slips. Once done, they’ll dry and get bisque fired… and then someone at Lillstreet will be glazing them with clear glaze after camp ends. The kids will need to come back about two weeks after camp to pick up their masterpieces!

And then once they were done, we set them aside so the slip could dry a bit… and put them together in their “sets” of two!

Of course Summer Camp isn’t ALL FUN all of the time… because Rule #3 says that “any mess you make, YOU will be cleaning it up!” And they do!!! Even when it’s a lot of water spilled on the floor… so there they go… down on the floor with a sponge!!! Giddy-up!!!

Getting all muddy & dirty sure is fun!!!

It’s been another great week of Wheelthrowing Summer Camp… with a younger group in the mornings, and an older group in the afternoon. It’s always fun to watch them learn how to throw on the wheel… struggle a bit… and then crank out a bunch of pots in just a couple days!!!

This past week at Summer Camp, my kids did wheelthrowing for the first half of the week, but switched to handbuilding to finish up. Their “challenge” was to make two handbuilt mugs that represented two different animals that somehow tied together. Oddly, we had quite a few platypuses… or is that platypi?… NOPE!… but I think it has something to do with “Phineas & Ferb”???

We’re in the middle of my second week of Summer Camp at Lillstreet… another week of wheelthrowing & handbuilding with my campers! Picture a classroom full of VERY energetic nine 8-year old boys… and one quiet girl in the corner (she’s a trooper)! And, oh but wait there’s more... several of them came in already as best friends from school! And when the Dad dropped off the first one of the boys… his comment was “Good Luck with this one”… and then he left! Yikes!

Let’s just say they’ve been “very entertaining” for me this week. But not too much for them to be following Rule #3… cleaning like the best of them!

After wheelthrowing the first couple days, my Summer Camp kids this week switched to handbuilding for the last two days. We all built slab mugs… lots of scoring & slipping… plus, they needed a “theme” that tied their two mugs together!