Art Camp: Where the Wild Things Are

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I suppose if one sends one’s child to art camp for a week, one should just assume she will come back with an entire banker box worth of art.  I need to stock up on banker boxes…

So I signed Esmé up for last week’s Summer Kids Camp at Umpqua Valley Arts Association, and the week’s theme was Where the Wild Things Are.  Her first day, she came home a bit quiet, and frankly, sort of upset with me for signing her up. “Too much pressure,” she says. I guess doing one scheduled art activity after another for seven straight hours after being on a totally relaxed summer schedule got to her.

But she wanted to give it another shot, and by the end of the week she was raving about it as the best camp ever, superseding all the other summer camps she could participate in.  So I think we’ll try to get her in another few weeks.

Her number one favorite thing – getting to use a hot glue gun for the fairy houses.

Here is a glimpse of some of the stuff she came home with:

Papier Mache Mask

This took several days – the first day was creating the mask frame using a balloon, followed by the additional parts and painting.

Clay Mask

A last-minute project using air-hardening clay. 

Creative Creatures

The students created 3D creatures using wood, clay, etc.  Esmé made a “listening” device out of wood (not pictured), as well as clay turtles, a random wild critter, and a “hatched” egg.

And here is her sweet plaster fox:

Ink Blob Critters

An ink blob can be the start of all kinds of wild things!  I’m only showing a small sample of Esmé’s portfolio.  You’re welcome.

Paintings and Drawings

Once again, just a small sampling…

What would a week of art be without at least one mermaid picture?

Fairy Houses

The class took some outside field trips to collect nature materials for a variety of fairy (or folklore) houses.  They used small jars, and I believe the one is made by wrapping string around a balloon, using glue or some other hardening agent, and then popping & removing the balloon.  Pretty cool.

Esmé immediately hung up one of her jars outside to catch a fairy.

They also brought home a little bag of fairy “dust” (glitter).

This is a picture Esmé drew at home, because you’ve gotta have a fairy to go with a fairy house, right?

 

There were also several creative group pictures (draw something, pass it on to the next person to draw the next item as instructed), a paper collage, a matrix of “emotion” drawings, and other stuff I can’t quite figure out.  It’s pretty impressive how much you can do in 4 days…

And she is off to art camp again this week, with Space is the Place.”  I wonder how many aliens she’ll be bringing home…

Magic Marker Monday

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"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

~Pablo Picasso

Esmé's Mommy here.

On my reading "stand" (an empty medicine cabinet that belongs in our unfinished bathroom but sits by our bed) is the library book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. I've been lamenting my lack of drawing skills every time Esmé tells me: "Draw a sheep! Draw a horse! Draw a pig!" So my husband's aunt recommended this book to me, and I have hope! I will get this brain switch thing figured out one day and come up with passable art!

Two-year-old Esmé, of course, already has the brain switch thing figured out. How else could she take one of these 2-inch critters (encased in a jar for her viewing pleasure and artistic pursuits)...

...and carefully craft this magnificent replication of the scene?

At least she wasn't into tattoo art this day.

And don't ask what we did with the beetle after its modeling stint...

(Thanks to www.bentler.us for the beetle photo...)

See 5 Minutes for Special Needs for more of Magic Marker Monday...

Magic Marker Monday - Canvases

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"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."
~Pablo Picasso

Let's show you some of the canvases this 26-month-old has been using in my art recently...

Here's my very first acrylic on canvas painting! See the tiny black-haired rock-climber in blue dress in the upper left?
Here's a monocromatic drawing on my easel paper. Lots of nice detail bringing to mind spring...

Another monochromatic drawing, on a notecard this time. Lots of eyes - my specialty!
My favorite canvas: ME! And of course, baby doll does everything I do. Here is HER painting...

Magic Marker Monday

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This week I decided to use real magic for Magic Marker Monday. This is my very own iPhone work of art! That is one magic phone. Pappa really should let me use it more often...

It's a Face!

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Esmé's Mommy here, just cashing in on some bragging rights!

Not only did the little miss figure out how to write her second letter this week (think "down, up"), she also drew this masterpiece of a face for the first time, telling us as she was drawing where the eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and hair were. She drew circles for ears, too, but erased them before I could get a photo.

Check those eyes out! I thought kids were supposed to draw dots for eyes!

Sharing the Love

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On Saturday I promised I would show you my tempera paintings. Here's my gallery. Mommy decided to try the Rorschach method on some of these for fun. There are two paper mosaics too, since I wanted to use the glue so bad.

While we're on the subject of art, here is my writing on the wall. I'm only allowed to do this in the art room - don't worry!

And here I am with a food art masterpiece.

And hair art, too!
Now that my art show is out of the way, I wanted to pass on a "Sharing the Love" award that came from Summer. This award is in honor of a heart donor - click on the button below for the full story.

The rules of this award are: SHARE THE LOVE!!! Share this award with all those blogs out there that you love. All the people who make you smile. All those that make you laugh. All those that make your day. All those that leave uplifting comments on your blog. **All I ask, is that you include a link to this post with the award and ask your recipient to do the same**

So - passing it on to: Lis Garrett, New Mommy Rant, Not Before 7, Random Thoughts, Sincerely Anna, Sunshine on My Shoulders, The Artful Parent, The Laughs Will Go On, WhatNot, Zoe

And there are MANY more who deserve the award, I know. We're just tryin' to keep the post a reasonable length.

Sea Anemones and Birthdays

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Just wanted to get a quick post out before we head out to a waterfall near Namaacha to play hooky for the day.

First of all, happy birthday, Grandma! Mommy says you are 69 times older than me, but I don’t know my 69 times tables yet (only up to five, you know), so I’m not sure what that is. But I’m very glad you’re my grandma and I hope you have a happy day!
(Mommy’s note: Since Uncle Ed already let the world know which birthday it is, I don’t feel guilty at all.)

Then I wanted to let you know that even though I was on vacation last month, I still did some artwork. Here are a sea anemone and a porcupine I made from florist foam and craft sticks. Can you tell which is which?
Mommy tried to teach me colors as I was making these, but I didn’t really care which colors I was using – it was too much fun just sticking the sticks in and taking them out again! Mommy put the creatures high up where I couldn’t reach, or I would have been remaking them all day.

And in the background is the bottom of a package I decorated for Grandma.

Well, talk to you later. I still got lots to talk about regarding the US trip – going bowling and visiting cousins and flying . . .

Artiste

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Esmé's Mommy here:

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a very artsy person. However, I don't want Esmé to be the only kid on the block without a masterpiece on the wall by the time she is 18 months, so we've been improvising.

Usually art class consists of giving Esmé a piece of paper to scribble on, and then Mommy takes it and makes the craft out of it while Esmé eats crayons. This week's theme was elephants, as you can see.

Today Esmé decided to color on the wall while I was working on the toilet paper roll elephant. (Yes, I do give her blank paper, but she usually prefers tile art.) Here is what she came up with. Very nice purple and brown, with smudge aftereffects, don't you think?

And then while working with play dough, I remembered the imprint ideas I'd seen on other blogs and had the bright idea to imprint baby doll's feet. Esmé was all over that one. We had a couple of trial and errors, but here are our final imprint sets, Esmé's on the left (in case you were wondering).
Now, if someone could tell me how to get MySpace back in English, I'd appreciate it. It's all in Portuguese now, and I'm just not there yet on my language lessons!

Red + Blue = Purple

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Mommy has been winging school lately. So she comes up with all sorts of weird ideas, like "Ball Art" on the day our theme is "Balls." That consists of coloring a ping pong ball with a magic marker and then crumpling up a piece of paper around it, resulting in a crumpled, smudged piece of paper.

Or on the day we had Moses and the Bulrushes theme, I ate pancake pieces floating in applesauce – I'm not sure the pancake pieces qualified as baskets, even though they were fibrous with whole wheat flour and sweet potatoes in them. They were yummy, though.

And yesterday the theme was "Bed." You can tell what's on her mind, huh? So I decided not to take a morning nap in civil protest. Some other themes have been "Money" and "Telephone," as well as some numbers and colors.

For art, Mommy lets me paint the bathtub. Here is me blending red and blue. She says I will probably be an engineer and not an artist, because I am more interested in how the paint lid goes on and whether the rubber bathtub stopper will close the paint jar than I am in my artwork.

We still have fun most of the time. Mommy's just not learning as much, since she makes up everything as we go.