ARTventure DC Session 2, Part 1!

ARTventure DC Session 2: Meet the Artists 

This week we have another excited and creative group of campers, and it's girls week.  Somehow there are only girls this week so clearly we have been listening to TONS of Taylor Swift while making art!  

Here is an overview of the projects this post:

• Monday: Henri Matisse: Campers learned about the life of Henri Matisse and focused on his collage technique.  Campers created their own collage today! 
• Tuesday: Alberto Giacometti: Campers looked at hor Giacometti transitioned from painter to sculptor, and were inspired and challenged to create any sort of sculpture today from easily found materials!  

 Students have a page we glue into our sketchbooks every morning, they then cut and paste corresponding facts and images about the artist into their sketchbook. This is an easy way for them to remember all the artists and facts they learn! To the right you can see a camper preparing for the day with her sketchbook!  Her Henri Matisse collage is pictured on the right, it's a cake with candles and a present!

Left: Margo  Right: Ames 

Left:house, sunset, and flag of Colombia by YuliMiddle: Palm tree and the beach by Adler, Right: House, Moon and stars by Ava

Even Ms. Foy and Ms. Monica got to make collages today!!! 

Left: Sun, Water and Boat by Ms. Monica    Right: Mountains and night sky by Ms. Foy

Tuesday we learned about sculpture!  Campers were very excited to begin this project, but then encountered many challenges which they had to work through.  We quickly realized that imagining what you want to create can be alot easier than actually creating it.   

Materials: Tape(Packing and Masking), Tin Foil, Hot Glue, Paper, Scissors, Popsicle Sticks, Q-tips, Cardboard

Check out our creations!

Left: House by Ames   Middle: Flower and Vase by Margo   Right: Flowers, Vase and Tray by Ava

Left: Flowers and Vase by Adler    Middle: Sailboat by Adler    Right Flowers, Vase and Tray by Ava

Check back soon to see our awesome Andy Warhol inspired printmaking pieces, impressionist paintings, and more!

ARTventure DC: Session 1 Museum Trip!

As a final camp experience, we ventured out to The National Gallery of Art in downtown DC! We ventured onto the metro and impressed other riders with how orderly and quickly we all got through the turnstyles swiping our metro cards during the AM commute!  We walked from the Archives-Navy Memorial metro stop and arrived just before the museum opened in time for a story about visiting the museum...

Once the museum finally opened, we traveled inside through the marble hallways and stairs.  We were approached by a museum staff member who made a point to come over to tell us that we were one of the most responsible, and respectful group of campers he had seen in the museum!  Campers spent time looking through some landscapes(one which had the Parthenon painted in it which we looked at Thursday!).  Eventually we wandered to the room which I find kids are always fascinated by; the room which holds the Shaw Memorial.  We picked up  a handy little kids guide which talkes about this piece, and found the corresponding pages...

The favorite prompt/question for this piece was about imagining and sharing what sounds you would hear in this piece of art.  Campers got very creative with this and built off each others ideas! After about an hour and a half exploring the museum, we headed back to camp!

Thanks to the AMAZING Ms. Monica for documenting our day at the museum with her camera!  I find on field trip and travel days I always forget to take pictures... and here's a rare thing you wont usually see on this blog... a picture with me in it!!! 

THANK YOU to the amazing parents and campers of ARTventure DC session 1!  I had such an amazing time with you all!  Teaching, creating, and learning with these kids is an amazing opportunity and I'm so glad I get to see some of my students year round and help their love, knowledge, and skills within art continue to grow!

ARTventure DC 2015: Art Around the World, Part 2!!

As promised, here comes some more ARTventure DC fun from session 1: Art Around the World!

For this project we set up outside of the normal ARTventure DC Studio, because things were about to get REALLY messy (because where's the fun with no mess?!).  Students used cooked spaghetti noodles to splatter paint in the style of artist Jackson Pollock. Campers quickly realized how tiring this method was, and were blown away at the concept that some of Pollocks pieces were larger than they were!! Here's some great final pieces!

The following day at camp we jumped into Architecture and the way buildings look.  Campers looked at iconic architecture from Greece, Italy, France, India, and related it back to pieces of architecture here in the U.S.A.  Campers were then sent to create their own piece of architecture using: Cardboard, Q-Tips, Popsicle Sticks, Hot Glue, Tape, and Oil Pastels. 

One final activity we did, well actually I hadn't planned on doing this, but the campers gave me the idea... we had an ART SALE!!!! 

How did this work? Well here goes:

1. Each camper started the day with $10 (play money). 

2. Campers could award to others, or receive extra $ for being role model artists.  

(for example, Margo found 2-3 pieces of Ian's legos he was missing, so Ian shared that he thought she deserved $3 extra for being such a great friend, all the campers agreed, and Margo of course accepted)

3. Campers created 6 drawings which they felt would sell and priced them according to the value they thought they were worth. 

4. Campers gathered in a circle, laid out their creations, and moved any pieces the did not wish to sell, behind them.

5.  We looked for 3 solid minutes at what we hoped to buy... there was total silence...

6.  We went around the circle signifying with a raised hand that there was a piece someone wanted to buy.

 

Now, as time went on campers realized in order to buy they also have to sell, so we allowed negotiations to be made which was an interesting process some art dropped from $10 to $2 while other pieces went from $6 to "I'll just take all your money". At the end of the day, it was possibly one of the most intense and focused moments of art camp, but one that the campers begged to do for the rest of camp!!!

ARTventure DC 2015: Art Around the World, Part 1!

ARTventure DC 2015 has BEGUN!  

Some of you may recall seeing posts last summer about the mini summer camp I run, called ARTventure DC. Well, we have changed the format a little bit this year, to less travel, more arts experiences, and session one was AMAZING!  Above, you can see the camp location is the beautiful basement of a Bancroft family's house, which is the perfect location for imagining, creating, and of course, making a mess! 

 Filled with campers the space looks great!  Camp runs from 8:00-12:00 Monday through Friday for three weeks throughout the summer and on Friday we travel to an art museum to see the work and artists we have learned about throughout the week. This week the theme was "Art Around the World".  We focused on a particular artist or style from countries like the U.S.A., Australia, Japan, Italy, India, Greece, and more!  

Here are our 2 of our projects!  Check back soon for more! 

Japanese Wood Block Prints

One day, we travelled to Japan to look at the way they created art through printmaking.  We talked about the various methods of printmaking and materials, and realized that woodblock carving was a very challenging process.  So instead, we used styrofoam plates and a dull pencil to create our own image.  While campers worked on carving their image, Ms. Monica and I made some prints with color of plain plates(seen above, middle photo).  Campers then used the brayers to ink and print their own images.  Check out our results! 

   Campers had a small 2inch by 2inch square to first practice their carving skills on, and we decided to print each others small squares to make a collaborative piece of art.  Check out one of our collaborative pieces below!(even Ms. Monica and Ms. Foy made squares to print!)

The next day at camp, we learned about various Abstract and Pop Artists from the United States!  We got alot of inspiration to create jumbled up works of art like Jasper Johns, and  shape focused art like WassilyKandinsky(okay okay, we know he wasn't born in the U.S.A., but we still loved his work!).  Just a few of our creations are below! 

 

 Another artist we learned about was Jackson Pollock, have you seen his work?  He used his the force of his whole body to paint flinging his paint across the canvas....well to get a little inspiration and an appreciation for his hard work we painted by flinging...... SPAGHETTI across our pages..... 

Check back later this week to see our SPAGHETTI ART!!!!