Camp

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week i taught the Winter Break Camp at Artspace. Camp lessons are an hour and fifteen minutes and planning for them involves more steps and detail than a regular hour long class. There is nothing I dread more than hearing thirty minutes into a class than "Teacher, I'm finished"

Of course I hear the dulcet sounds of that phrase nearly every lesson I teach  the younger groups (aged 3-6) so the dread is in the anticipation of it as much as in the utterance. I've gotten pretty good at redirecting back to the art but there's a good chance that the I'm done will be so complete for whatever reason (it's the last day of camp and it's two days until christmas and I'm just done already!) that I have to allow for it and hope that it's not contagious which it can be and then am I ever in for a bout of mild chaos.

This camp was no exception and I was prepared with an extra project on day one, the instruction to make another and as many as you can get to on day two and a fresh sheet with all the colours on day three.

So camp rundown:

Day 1:
multi step painting and collage of a winter forest sunrise to celebrate the Solstice

lines

our last Artsparks lesson focussed on monotone and complimentary colours,  lines and stamping. We used bingo daubers, matching oil pastels and complimentary watercolours with black paint stamped and rolled over top.

The Way Way Upside to Teaching to the Toddler and Preschool Set

Every child is an artist. 

The problem is how to 

remain an artist once we 

grow up. Pablo Picasso

And how you do that is by making a point to make art with toddler and preschool aged children as often as possible. In the two plus years that I've been teaching art to children and the two or so weeks I've  been posting about teaching art to children here; I've mentioned a smattering of times that my expectations for the final artworks for each of my art lessons is always exceeded by my little artists. 

It's how they approach making art that really does it. And it's really not that they all approach art making in the same way because boy do they not do that. What I mean is that they walk into the studio excited about making art. Even my highly anxious young artists dive into making art. Sure there are days that are better than others, there are days that the materials we use and the subject matter doesn't really do it but even on those days there is some form of visual expression that they can get behind. Even if it's just the first few minutes of class with markers and sketchbook the act of making art makes them happy.

In this week's Art exploration lesson I was treated to some serious observational skills from one of my young artists. An exploration of the materials and techniques used in the class that pushed outside the really good moment, pulled it back and pushed it further combined with a unique application that gave the creator's a super finished art work.

The lesson incorporates one of my favourite paint application techniques: gift card paint scraping and rolling. We also stamped into the painting with contrasting white paint. I pre-cut cat shapes and chalk pastel was used to add detail to the cat before it was glued down to the painting.