Summer Art Camp

As summer comes to a close (so sad) I thought I would share with you a fun summer tradition. For the past few summers one of my good friends and I put on a Art Camp for our kids, their friends and neighbors. We have loads of messy fun making different crafts, painting and baking. This year we had an older girls group (9-12) and a younger children's age group (5-7). Here's some of the creative things these kids did this summer:

 Painting on canvas is such a treat for these kids. We talked to them about sketching first and then they pick a still life they want to do (or not). These make for great works of art on their walls.

The girls also decorated their own tote bags using fabric or painting on them. My daughter Alison uses hers for her music bag now.

                   We made banners for their bedrooms or for their birthday parties using paper and fabric.

                                          It can get a bit messy when creativity is in the works.

          The older girls did some beautiful watercolors and we taught them about sketching and landscapes.

We had a day for the younger children to learn about Pop Art and showed them some of Andy Warhol's works. The children traced some shapes we had for them like a ducky, ice cream cone, crown, sailboat. etc and we used a grid method to break up their paper. Then they used poster paints to fill up the space. 

 Another activity was watercolor where they learned how to do Pointillism. Pointillism is like Impressionism but with tiny dots to create an image (think- George Seurat). The children used q-tips to create a pointillism effect.

Kids love to decorate cupcakes. They got to decorate a cookie monster and Elmo cupcakes. I didn't get many pictures of these because everything was gobbled up to fast.

 Lastly, we did a spaghetti art throwing day to learn about Expressionism. Think Jackson Pollock and splattering paint. Instead of throwing paint, we had the kids throw painted spaghetti at large pieces of paper to create an expressionist look.

 As you can imagine- it was a lot of spaghetti to clean up. However, they had fun running through the sprinkler at the end to get all cleaned up and I hosed my house down.

We also had lots of little side projects like these where we taught them to blend colors and using the color wheel. Summer is such a fun time to do art projects with kids. We had a great time and I'm sure we'll do more next year. What about you? Any fun art projects you made?

*All images are my own. 

Summer Planning

My girls are now out of school for summer break.  Yea!! The last weeks have been filled with field trips, softball games, field days, and school projects. I love having my girls home for summer and look forward to spending time with them. Every summer, we love to go up to Massachusetts to spend time with cousins and family (these are some pictures from last year). I'll be showing you some of the rooms in our home there that my family and I have worked on over the years- like this one with nautical charts.

The last couple of years I've made a summer schedule for our girls. Daily routines can help things go smoothly in our house. For our reading program we do "Penny a Page." For every page they read they get a penny. My older girls keep track of their book pages and do book reports on the books they read and then they get some cash at the end of the summer- major motivation. They love it! And so do I, since it helps them with their reading and writing skills. 

For the past few summers my friend Elinn and I hold an Art Camp. Last summer we taught drawing, sewing, crafts, and baking. We'll be gearing up for Art Camp again this summer. I held art camp in my house last year and many of the neighbor kids and friends from school came and enjoyed learning new skills.

I'll be showing  you some of the projects we'll be doing for Art Camp this year. We'll be teaching two groups: a younger and older age group. I can't wait! It's good to have some summer plans. What about you? Got any fun plans for the summer?