Makey-Makey Camp!

Makey-Makey Art Camp continues at the Blackfoot Art Center! 

For the last two class sessions (partially due to the heat) we moved indoors and explored our MakerSpace and the concept of making (which comes quite naturally to most young artists.) 

Campers were challenged to make anything they liked from the materials available to them. They could choose from our Makers' handouts, such as Flexigon fidget toys or this balancing Robot.

This week we decided to make some duct tape projects. Shown here is a pencil pouch with a clear window and a ziplock closure. 

Boys' wallet - outside

We also made folding wallets such as this one.  This folding wallet has a window pocket, two card pockets, a secret pocket, and pocket for bills!

Boys' wallet - inside

We even made a special "Artistic License" to place inside the window pocket.

More custom made wallets:

Another option was to make something from our cardboard scrap pile and/or our junk box - I mean Treasure Chest! Or, campers could simply make something from a cardboard box. All of the studio supplies were available to them, including construction paper, glue, tape (six types!), staplers, markers, and anything else on our shelves. 

I have learned that kids love to make things that they can use or play with later on, such as the balancing robot (shown above), or this Flexagon fidget toy...

... or this tabletop Skeeball game! 

The game was constructed from a flat cardboard box and includes a rubber band marble launcher and a marble holder. It also folds for easy portability. Wow!

Also popular with Makers are models, which are the first step in the design process. Of course, some makers create a sketch first, but many dive right into building the model itself. Here is an intricate model of a vending machine, which was a collaborative project between two siblings.

Model of a toy vending machine

Vending machine side opening

Vending machine graphics

More Nature Weaving

 

We had a lot of interest in weaving this summer, so we creating some additional types of weaving projects. 

Here we have a traditional weaving that was created on a cardboard loom with a stick woven into the top of the loom. When the piece was cut from the loom at the bottom, the stick was already in place at the top. The artist added a stick, beads, and feathers to the bottom, and tied a hanger to the top. 

Campers also wanted to make wearable woven art.

These little weavings are created on a tiny cardboard loom that becomes part of the piece when completed. 

You can see more details about how these are created on our previous post, Wearable Woven Art.

Nature Weaving

Weaving is a traditional skill that we have practiced in the past using carboard looms. The completed weavings were removed from the looms, which could be used again and again. 

This time, we decided to make a handmade triangular loom using sticks that we found in our green space. The loom in this case would become a part of the woven art piece.

We first bound the sticks together at the corners. Then, starting at one corner, we wrapped the warp thread across and around the loom to create starburst effect. We could achieve this by gathering all of the warp threads together at the center and binding them with weft (the yarn to be woven into the warp) and then continuing to weave the remainder of the weft around and around the center to create a 'disk' of weft. 

Then we changed colors and/or textures of weft and continued weaving. No tying off or anything, just weaving and hiding the ends as new yarn is added.  

I enjoyed observing the kids' color choices. Some went with bright, showy colors; others with earthy, natural colors.

 

Our young artists were skeptical of this whole idea at first. Circle weaving in a triangular loom???

Binding the loom together was challenging, and wrapping the warp thread around the loom was tricky. Unless you had a very knobby stick, the warp thread could slip. If you are working with a smooth stick, one option was to wind the string around the stick an extra time before pulling it across to the other side and continuing.

In any case, the end results were very nice, and the kids were excited about adding additional natural elements such as feathers and tiny pinecones. 

For more about about nature weaving, see our previous Summer Art Camp 2020 post.

Nature Clay Mobile

Makey-Makey Art Camp at the Blackfoot Art Center is all about (you guessed it)  MAKING STUFF! 

We started outdoors with some beautiful circle weaving using looms made of natural sticks. Next, we switched to airdry clay to create a nature imprint hanging mobile. This was a 2-day project because the clay needed to dry overnight. 

Artists first explored our green space in search of interesting objects that could be impressed into clay. They worked the clay until it was soft and rolled it out to create a slab. Then the pressed each object into the clay and cut around it with a table knife to create a piece for their mobile. Some objects had very distinct textures (such as juniper bush evergreen needles), while others were flatter and less easily seen (like leaves). 

Once all of the clay was impressed with an object, we then flipped over each piece and impressed a new object into the back of the piece. Some artists embellished a piece of two with additional markings using clay tools. We also cut out a hole into each piece for hanging. 

The next day we painted each piece with acrylic craft paint. This was a quick process, especially working outside on a warm day! Artists chose natural colors and painted one side of a piece, ensuring the the impressed areas will filled with paint. Then, before the paint dried, they wiped off the piece slightly with a damp paper towel so the impressions would pop out, and repeated the process on the other side. 

We sprayed them with acrylic gloss sealant (Krylon) and began the process of stringing them to a birch stick.  We strung a few pony beads to a piece of jute for each piece before tying it on. Then we laid everything out on the table to decide what will go where. 

We found that placing the larger piece in the middle helps to balance the mobile, and placing the others at various levels keeps them from banging together (these aren't chimes - and they could break!).

Seashore Path in Pastel

Let's take a walk to the seashore!

This week we created this cozy little path to the beach using oil pastels on black construction paper.

We started by first establishing our horizon line. We did this with a strip of blue painter's (masking) tape. Then we filled in our sky area with our sky colors, such as blues and violets, which we softened by blending with our fingers. 

Then we added swirls of white and softened them again. We then removed the tape and filled in the distant ocean colors at the horizon line, moving forward with lighter blues and some distant white waves.  

Then we added the larger waves nearer the seashore, starting with darker blues, then the foamy white and lighter blues along the tops and blended slightly with the fingers. 

Various blues were then added in horizontal strokes below the waves to indicate water lapping onto the shore, with white edges along the water's edge. 

Once the water was done, the sand was added using the lightest shades of tan and fleshtone colors. This was best done by stroking with the sides of the pastels, not the tips, on the paper. Then we added little fence posts, sea grasses of varying greens and yellows, and blue shadows in the sand. 

Finally, we added very realistic footprints in a darker brown and a few birds flying in the distance (Sharpies).

I don't know about you, but I would like to visit this place!

We did this project slightly differently back in 2016; we did not include the horizon line. You can take a look at the results right here. Which one do you like best?

School of Fish in Watercolor

This week we created a school of brightly colored fish with a technique called watercolor batik -- using w/c masking fluid.

This lesson was a fun way to learn about repetition and pattern, as well as different types of focal points and how to use them in a work of art. 

To do this, we created a school of fish with an outsider in the crowd!

We used fish templates: one for our outsider or "oddball", which was drawn first, and another to trace several times for our school of fish - because, of course, they should all look alike. Some artists chose to draw their own outsider, such as the sea turtle above.

It was important to use overlapping when drawing the fish so that some of them appeared in front of or behind other fish. We drew lightly because the pencil lines would need to be erased later on. 

We also added a few details to the fish, remembering that if you add a detail to one fish, you need to add the same detail to all of the other fish in the school!

The next step was to paint over all of the pencil lines with masking fluid. We used old brushes for this task because masking fluid often ruins your brushes, even if you wash them out right away. 

The masking fluid acts like masking tape - it keeps the watercolor off of the paper, even when you paint right over it. It keeps the colors separated, and it can be used to paint bubbles in the background, which stay white! 

The masking fluid is ready to paint over almost immediately - it dries fast. So the next step was to paint the fish. We found that a great way to do this is to paint one fish first, then copy it when doing all of the other fish in the fish school. 

The outsider is painted in different colors or even complementary colors to act as a focal point. So, it could be a different shape, size, or color, and/or it could be swimming in a different direction. 

Finally, the watery background was painted in, and after all the paint was dry, the masking fluid was removed. This is done by simply rubbing it off with your finger and tossing the residue into the trash. It took a while to do, but even the youngest artists got the hang of it. Then we used a big soft white eraser to remove any remaining pencil marks. It pays to draw lightly!

The last step was to add a few details with a Sharpie. All of the artists added detail to the eyes, and a few more added additional outlining and other details as well. 

To see an earlier post about this beautiful painting project click here. We have also created watercolor batik fish using white oil pastel instead of masking fluid. Find out how we did it here. 

Silly (Sneaky) Seagulls

 

If you've ever tried to have a picnic at the beach, you know that the neighborhood seagulls will try to steal your lunch.

So we decided those little rascals would be a perfect subject to illustrate as we continue with our Oceans & Seashores theme this month.

We started with a pale sky-blue background (12" x 18" sulfite paper). We filled in the top 1/3 with our sky using soft pastels, and some artists added a few seagulls in the distance. 

We then set it aside to create a wet-on-wet watercolor ocean on a sheet of 9" x 12" watercolor paper. We added course salt for texture, and let it dry. The ocean could be made first for more drying time.

We observed a few photos of seagulls and then drew our own on a sheet of white drawing paper (9" x 12") using charcoal pencils and soft pastels, which we smudged and smeared to create shadows. 

We also added a silly detail or two, such as sunglasses or a scarf. We even had a pirate! When the seagulls were completed, we cut them out.

Next, we glued a 9" x 12" piece of brown or tan paper to the bottom of the blue background paper to create our sandy beach. Then we tore the ocean paper to create a few waves and glued it to the center section of the blue paper, overlapping the beach edge. We added some torn sand paper here and there, including a mound for our seagull to stand on, and marked it up with white oil pastels. We also glued on a few rocks, seashells, and bits of a snack wrapper (we ate the snacks). 

The last step was to glue the seagull into the scene and cut out a picture of one of the snacks from the wrapper, such as a cookie, to glue it into our seagull's beak. 

For more about this project, see our earlier 2019 post.

Tropical Island Sunset

Imagine visiting a tropical island paradise, lying on the beach, listening to the gentle waves, and watching a beautiful ocean sunset. 

That's what we did... and then we painted it!

The stunning sunset colors in these paintings are not actually paint at all. 

Artists instead covered the paper with soft (sometimes called chalk) pastels, starting with purple at the top, then pink, red, orange, and ending with yellow in the center. Then they reversed the order of the colors to the bottom of the paper to create a mirror image for a beautiful ocean reflection.

The next step was to dip a finger in white tempera paint and smear it over the colors, top to bottom. Like magic, the white paint adds texture and a bit of drama while becoming the color of the pastel! They carefully blended one color with the next, wiping fingers often to avoid making 'mud.' 

While the paintings dried, our artists practiced painting a tropical island silhouette in black tempera on plain white copy paper. They wanted to learn how to depict things like a palm tree, palm leaf fronds, sea grasses, birds in flight, and distant islands.

Then they painted their tropical island scene right over their dried sunsets. So beautiful!

Our artists ranged in age from 6 to 13. We have also created these Tropical Sunsets at a previous Summer Art Camp. 

This is an expanded version of an Art for Kids: Ocean Scenes painting idea, in which black cutouts are used for the silhouettes (probably an easier option for younger children).