It was a pleasure to have your children in our UpCycle class. In our first class we had an opportunity to get to know each other a little better. We started with clay and worked together adding to a group design. After warming up our fingers we moved over to mixing paint and creating new colors. We selected one of the sample colors we made and made a larger quantity of it. That paint was then used to paint a board that we will use as a base for next week.
Eve and I like to let the children work at their own pace. While some were still mixing their paints others were ready to move on. During that transition we read a book: Mr. Cornell's Dream Boxes by Jeanette Winter. This is a children's book about an American artist who created his multi-dimensional work inside of boxes. This lead us to investigate cigar boxes. Each child selected a box and took a moment to think about what they could do within the box. Materials were available to create dividers within the box and cover the inside spaces. One box was turned into a tic-tac-toe board. Some were so pleased they wanted to take their work home even though there will be further opportunities to work on the box in future classes. If you are interested in more information on Joseph Cornell, some of his work can be found at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. There is also a fun website that offers information about the artist and the site is set up like one of his boxes. The site is not up to date as it has events listed from 2006. But other parts of the site are informative and aesthetically pleasing. http://www.josephcornellbox.com/ We look forward to meeting with you again on 11/17, 12/1, 12/8 and 12/5. At UpCycle, we plan explorations and experiences to expose children to new artistic media. As we create together, we find it important for children to have experiences where they become familiar with materials and build on work from previous days. We also believe that when we work in groups everyone's work is enhanced through the exchange of ideas and skills. As with many camp sessions, we have opened with a group experience around clay. Working with two 25 lb. hunks of clay, our friends have molded and changed the clay in many ways. We have worked together to create fairy houses, an elephant with cookies, a bunny house, a snake hospital, cakes, pancakes and even "Twenty Kinds of Dipping Sauce." In our small groups, we have had experiences that yield product that will be incorporated into several projects this week. In one group, we printed with found objects on paper and fabric. Then we painted the spaces on the fabric to create a warm, original composition. In another group, we used glue to mask areas of the fabric before painting it with fabric paint. We are excited to see the results after washing the glue off. We also have been learning about Matisse's cut out collages, doing observational drawings and preparing painted paper for a large collage project. One of our most popular small groups has been the take-apart group. We are having great fun using tools to pop keys off of keyboards, and open up telephones, cameras, a stereo and more. After lunch each day, the rooms are open for free exploration. We have one one set up with open-ended play materials and balls & tunnels. Each day there is a new story evolving from the play, from pirates to ninjas in submarines. Many have tinkered with the materials in the studio or used materials in our message center. Our week is off to a great start! We wrapped up another awesome week with our middle school campers. But, we heard our session wasn't really like camp--it was so much better! This week, we created our own design paper of repeated objects and used it to customize a desk set: a box, binder, folders and more. Another popular project this week involved creating with aluminum cans. We cut cans with scissors, punched shapes with paper punches and added textured designs with a press. Everyone was invited to make a design on a board and some decided to make jewelry. We also put the finishing touches on our paintings that depicted a "secret message," a meaningful place. And, we did observational drawings of our sculptures and painted them with watercolor. We staged our work and welcomed guests to our art show on the last day! At UpCycle, materials that are no longer useful for their original or intended purpose are considered a resource for creating. It's our goal that participants in our programs adopt this perspective on materials and continue to look at discarded materials for the abundant and unique resource that they are. We opened our second week of middle school camp this week with Demo-vation, taking apart discarded items and creating something new from the parts we discover inside. Our campers delighted in taking apart a hair dryer, router, curling iron, trophies and other appliances that had been donated to UpCycle. We sorted the spare parts by material and brought them into the smaller studio for use. In our small groups, we have begun project work that will span several days. The kids have been given a small aluminum tin to incorporate into a work of art. First they filled the tins with found objects and ephemera pertaining to a concept or idea. Then, they continued to decorate the tin or integrated the tin into a sculpture or scene. In another small group, we are working on a painting inspired by an alternative perspective of a favorite place. We first selected color palettes of one light, one dark and three medium colors. We then reclaimed canvases and panels by painting them with one color. Our gathering activity on the second day of camp was to draw objects from two perspectives, an activity to warm us up to return to our paintings. It was fun to push ourselves to draw from difficult angles and we laughed a lot at the results. Then, in one of our small groups we looked at Google maps to find satellite images of our special places. We began painting the places using our pre-selected color palettes, starting with the dark and light areas and then adding more details. After lunch each day we have a little time to return to the projects we have started, explore other areas of the studio or get a head start on future projects. Stay tuned!
What do we do at UpCycle when we have a surplus of fabric and a donation of extra long zippers? We think of a way to use our abundant resources to make something new. And, we find ways to elevate the materials and make them our own. That's how our patchwork pouches came to be this week. Throughout the week, the girls experienced ways to customize plain white fabric. We used found objects to print designs on fabric. Then we painted the spaces with a cool palette of diluted fabric paints. We also invited the girls to doodle on fabric with sharpie markers. We used our pens to make designs, symbols and images. In another process, we used glue to mask areas of the fabric before painting it with fabric paint. When the fabric was washed, the glue came off revealing that everyone's designs were preserved. To create the pouches, we cut large rectangles of sturdy fabric to serve as a base. We also cut the printed and doodled fabric into smaller strips and pieces. Then the girls planned their designs by selecting pieces of the colorful and doodled fabrics and placing them on them on the base pieces of fabric. Girls found doodles that spoke to them, cut them out and placed them on their designs. Many decided to keep their glue designed fabric intact. Susan worked with each girl at the sewing machine to tack down their designs. The girls pressed the button on the pedal while Susan controlled the action at the needle. On the last day of camp, Susan worked with everyone to install the zipper and create finished pouches. The girls took great satisfaction from being part of a project from start to finish: creating their own materials and finished products that were individual and beautiful. The girls were also involved in several other projects this week: found object sculpture, tissue textured boards and found object prints that were embellished with floss and beads. We had a lovely week with your girls! At UpCycle's camp, we start with experiences and explorations that build to final projects by the end of the week. We gather around clay on a daily basis because it's an exploration that allows us to share techniques and ideas and to build our class community. This week, coils, balls and spikes have been combined in elaborate designs. One was named "The Beautiful." Other friends made cubes that were stacked into steps and eventually evolved into water slides. We have also created birds, nests, and ponds. In our small groups, we have mixed our own palette of paints. We added texture to boards with tissue paper and used our custom paints to color the boards. We also explored the marks that found objects can make by printing with them. Once we knew the marks the objects would make, we used them to make personal compositions on card stock as well as group designs on pieces of fabric. In another small group, we are filling aluminum tins with items inspired by an idea, quote or joke. We are also exploring other ways to change fabric, including doodling designs and using glue to mask designs before adding color to the fabric. After lunch, our studio is open for exploration. We have been working at the message center and at the easels as well as returning to previous project work. Stay tuned to see what we do with the custom fabric; colorful, textured boards and tins! Parents were reminded of this week's camp art show by a sign on the door that read, "Art Show at 12:45 pm. I hope you like it." Everyone was excited to show their work from the week: mixed media collage on boards, found object sculptures that incorporated jokes or other ideas, Picasso-inspired paintings, found object prints that had been embellished by sewing as well as clay and cardboard creations. Here are some pictures from the second half of the week that capture the work leading up to the art show: And one more picture...a cloud that captured our attention and led to a lively discussion on the last day of camp! We saw a dragon, a hat, a pencil guy, an iguana and more!
This week we are opening with clay, and it's interesting to see what skills the children bring with them to camp and what ideas and concepts develop during our time together. Right away, we saw children tackling the challenge of building up with clay, from creating animals to rolling up slabs and standing them on end. On Tuesday, we made collections of shapes (spheres, cubes, cones, coils, etc.) and found ways to connect the shapes as a group. We saw a castle, a person and a dog form from this collection. During our small group work, we have explored materials that will become incorporated into projects over the course of the week. We mixed our own paint and developed a customized color palette to use at the easels and in our mixed media collage work. We also explored the marks that found objects can make and made small and large compositions from these marks. We have also planned and begun constructing found object sculptures that incorporate a joke or idea that interest the children. After lunch each day, the studio is open for the free exploration. We have been working at the easels, in the message center and at the light table as well as exploring balls and tunnels. We spent a week of provocations and exercises to take the girls out of their comfort zones and open them up to new materials and techniques. We love seeing how they made decisions and solved problems in order to infuse what's meaningful to them into their work. On the last day of camp, the girls set up an art show to showcase their work for the week. Enjoy! We're so excited to have a group of older girls in camp this week. They bring with them ideas, skills, perspectives and a liveliness that makes for a fun and interesting week. We have spent the first few days of camp exploring materials and doing exercises to build up to our culminating projects. Thanks to a recent donation of 5X7 index cards, we have an unending supply of cards to test out different drawing and painting techniques. We are collecting the cards from our experiences in cigar boxes: doodles, blind contour drawings, water color technique so far. We also mixed our own tempera paint and made new liquid water color from dried out markers. One of our projects started off with the girls applying tissue paper to reclaimed canvases. Next we covered the textured surface with our custom mixed paints. We will continue incorporating other media into this piece as the week progresses.
Another project we are working on involves integrating a joke, fortune or quote into a found object sculpture. We are busy gathering and creating materials for this project. |
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