Art in the Garden

This week of Art Camp took us to the Botanical Garden. We're spending every morning drawing, painting, and creating, and it's been an awesome experience !

 pastels

 acrylic on dark canvas

on site "land-art"installations, inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy

mermaid

Another articulated figure as a birthday card. This little mermaid will make her way to my niece to celebrate her 3rd birthday.

morning news

Clemson, and The Arts Center were on the morning news (again) this morning.

 It started at 5am (yes, I know) but it was fun to see a different crowd, and hang out downtown. 

We organized the chalk paint street painting and brought out the head of "Arty" from the christmas parade. I'm already thinking about ideas for our entry in this years holiday parade. Giant stars maybe.........?

swimmingly

Last day of lessons.......

Mazes are on the schedule for Art Camp this afternoon,

more on that later.

Have a nice day!

Flower Mandalas

This is from day two of 'Mirrors and Mandala's". We spent the first day working on mirror symmetry, and moved on to rotational symmetry yesterday. Making flower Mandalas (in traditional groups of four) takes a lot of negotiation and compromise, as well as a good eye for color. Bravo!
Today we will be doing some print making and making our own kaleidoscopes.

raw material

petals sorted by size and color

final mandala 1

mandala 2

mandala 3

taking notes

Some notes from my seat by the pool. Swimming lessons are a lot of fun to watch, and very instructive...

I enjoy the "safety tip of the day" too: " too much sun is no fun" (monday)

Little Red Riding Hood

An inspiring video to start the weekend: Little Red Riding Hood reinterpreted by (new to me) illustrator

Daniel Egneus. Inspiring!

The Time Rocket

Today was the last day of Art Camp, so it was show time. The kids put on their shadow play, and it was a rousing success! 

I was impressed with their patience and seriousness; it took a lot of negotiating to get 7 kids to agree on everything, and they didn't give up. 

the shadow theatre with horse puppet

baby alien and "bob" the dragon 

the theatre in action

a quick marionette project to round things off

 

the "bird dance"

art camp

Here's a peek at yesterdays "shadow play" art camp

first articulated movable puppets

an interpretation of Ann Wood's horses

shadow play

These photos are from the first day of this weeks camp. We built small theatre's from cereal boxes and tracing paper with help from here. We will dig deeper the rest of this week, make bigger articulated puppets and put on a show ( thanks to some ideas from here). 

The students are excited and enthusiastic, they could have spent hours making hand shadows :)

mini shadow theatre

the mechanics

paper doll

This is another paper cut out in honor of a little girl's birthday. I like it, but next time I'd make the head differently. Smaller and not movable? Back to the drawing board :)

IF: refresh

collage with hand painted shapes for illustration friday

happy independence day!

This weeks project: Community art at "Clemson Fest", 4th of july festival (on the 3rd, go figure). Homage to Jasper Johns, newspaper, latex and crayon on plywood.

This article "Happiness and Creativity" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is an interesting read.