A few weeks ago I taught a week long art camp at Arts + Literature Laboratory for 5 - 9 yr olds. It was the first time teaching a week long art camp but it was so much fun. I had a smaller group of kids so we were able to cover so much more ground!
The camp was called Community Art that Moves: Neighborhood as the studio. We started out by learning a bit about each other and making pins about those things and personalized aprons so we could carry supplies on the go when we went walking to see Mural Alley. I wanted the kids to see that there are many ways art can be mobile, can contribute to the community and ways for them to participate in the community by making art. They created many prints from styrofoam printing blocks and collagraph plates where they experimented with patterns and creating images with a theme of kindness and community in mind. They loved the printing process much to my delight. Some of the prints we made into stickers which was also a huge hit. There were breaks in time where we journeyed outside to create temporary chalk art designs that had one rule that everything had to be connected. They wanted to stay outside and paint with chalk a lot longer but the heat of the sun sent us back inside.
The main project we worked on was creating patterns on bisque ceramic tiles for the community mosaic mural at Communication. They all designed a couple of tiles and then traced their hands . I was incredibly lucky to be able to coordinate with the lead artists Becca Kacanda and Alex Hayes to have the kids contribute to what will be a new partial facade of Communication. I showed the kids where their tiles would end up when we were out on our walk and I hope they will like the fact their artwork will be hanging up for a long time to come. We even used the rest of the paint they took to start their own community mural.
The mini mural evolved on the last day, where again everything had to connect so they had to think about repetition, shape and use of color and working together. I would call the camp a huge success! I could write a ton more about the experience but I will let the photos do the talking <3
Also in collaboration with the mosaic mural I got to meet with a group of girls from Mentoring Positives so that they could also add their hands to the community mural. I gave them some very loose guidelines and they rolled with it. I absolutely adore the variety in all the hands!
There were still a few tiles that needed painting so I had each of my boys do one.
Tomorrow I get to help out with some of the final phases of installing the mosaic mural so look for some more photos soon. OR stop and see the unveiling during Communication's 1st year celebration/ fundraiser.