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Posts Tagged ‘Fine Arts Camp’

Middle School Fine Arts Camp Art 2021

Posted in art, Art Lessons, Arts Education, Sitka, tagged etching, Fine Arts Camp, grade 5, grade 6, grade 7, grade 8, middle school, printmaking, wood cut on January 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »

In 2021 the Sitka Fine Arts Camp held a very special camp, at half capacity, with amazing students starved for art and being together. It was intense, rewarding, and heartbreaking what our kids have lost the past years. We all need to love our kids!

The classes I taught were Printmaking, Drawing and Watercolor, and Graphic Novel. At some point I’ll try to scan and upload some of the comics but for now, some of the prints and drawings:

Printmaking

The camp runs two weeks, so days to work is about 11 1́/2. Woodcut is a lot of work, we also did rubber cuts, monoprints, stencils, collagraphs, and etching on both metal and plexiglass. Creativity is never a problem.

Drawing and Watercolor

We focused on what students wanted to work on, and did a lot of work outdoors, from a model, and finally of flowers. These kids worked so hard and were so focused. One day we were at the beach drawing, and a young deer, whose habit it apparently was to cut through the beach at that tide, came right up to our group, and after hesitating, made his way through the group. Of middle schoolers. Who were absolutely calm and thrilled. Not a typical group of young people!

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Lesson Two for 3rd through 6th Graders: Drawing What You See

Posted in Art Lessons, Arts Education, tagged art, art education, art project, blind contour, charcoal drawing, children, drawing for kids, elementary school art, Fine Arts Camp, kids, vine charcoal on February 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This is going back to Fine Arts Camp, the Elementary Camp in 2012. The first day is under Color inspired by Kandinsky for 3rd through 6th graders.

We had 60 children, coming in for about an hour in a group of 15 at a time.

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This day, we drew – using good old exercises that might be familiar to you if you took a drawing class in college. I brought in a chair from home, and had the kids do various exercises, like rapid timed drawings – a minute, 30 seconds, 10 seconds. You use newsprint and vine charcoal.
Another great exercise is called blind contour: first you hold your pencil or charcoal out, and trace the contour of the thing you are drawing, in the air. You visualize your pencil as a tiny bug, crawling along the contour of the object. Then you draw, not looking at the paper, just looking at what you are drawing, going slowly, and not picking up your charcoal.The results are a big squiggle, but with remarkable truth in the lines.It helps to tell the kids that this is a college exercise. It is hard, or challenging as we say. You have to be sensitive to when the kids are done – depending on the group of kids some went further, some did less, you play it by ear – but that’s any art class. It’s like – there’s nothing like it. But such a great feeling to be guiding a group of people, feeding off their energy and ideas, to direct them to something greater than they thought they could do.

Then do some quick drawings, and then further develop them. Amazing pictures.