Art Lab – Art Camp for Kids

Good Morning.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve created a blog post. That’s because it’s been summer camp time!!!

One week was devoted to creating lesson plans and the subsequent two weeks were all about kids ranging in age from 7-14 making all kinds of art.  This week I will show you my example of what we were doing for the day and the amazing work the kids turned out.

This project begins with studying tons of leaves of all shapes, sizes and textures. From there we discuss layout on our paper.  Maybe putting one leave dead center is not as interesting as creating a path of leaves around your paper for people’s eyes to travel?

Next, the entire sheet of paper must be covered in very heavy wax.  What is the most affordable way to provide wax to kids?  CRAYONS.  you bet!

Before we started working heavy with our crayons, the kids needed to understand the difference between warm and cool colors.  If the kids simply colored their paper using any old color, there may not be enough contrast to tell the difference between the foreground and background.  So they had to pick warm for one and cool for the other.

Now this is where some kids may have told you the true name of this place was “Mary’s Torture Camp”  because kids started moaning, trying to quit and complaining that they couldn’t “color-hard”, another stinking minute!

But very soon after, a few campers finished filling their entire sheets with wax.  Next they were told to fold and crease their paper as much as the possibly could.  Each time they made a crease, it made a crack in the wax.  When their papers were fully crinkled, I let them apply a watered-down black acrylic paint to their work.  The black paint only absorbed into the cracks, leaving their images intact.  We wiped off the excess paint revealing some truly fabulous art pieces.  This batik-style process brings so much visual interest to the art work.

The kids that finished their work became totally giddy and began to show the complainers their finished pieces and this turned everything around.  Not another moan was heard.  They all broke out into a frenzy to work harder and finish the project. And for good reason.  These wax resist artworks are amazing! Check them out:

 I was truly inspired. I am going to try to incorporate this technique into my own work in the fall. I loved this project!

I look forward to posting some more projects as I get them off my camera ;)