Artist~Teacher... tishalou

A little behind on this but still wanted to share. It made me chuckle when I read Jessica's back in June post on Art of Education called "Why I Don't Teach Kids in the Summer" and I had just agreed to do 4!

Since I started in the County I have taught our GT summer camp. See a post about that here. It is a four day camp which includes a field trip. It is for students who are gifted in art and have been recommended by their art teachers.

I also sought out another opportunity at a local store that offers kids birthday parties and art classes. I contacted the owner and she basically said - whatever, whenever I will market it!

So I agreed to 3 camps that were 3 hours a day M-F. The camps I offered were called Doodlemania, Dive Into Art and Passport to the World of Art. The majority of the attendees were my students but I also had some out of town kids visiting Grandma and students from other schools in the county. It was a lot of fun and I got to do some fun - more crafty than I would do int he classroom - no pressure lessons.

Here are some highlights:
DOODLEMANIA
We made paste paper and drug texture combs through it:

 We made an accordion book to hold our work:

 We made lots of Zentangles:

We even tie dyed a tshirt and then zentangled on it too!
DIVE INTO ART
We made self portraits with goggles on!
We used fun fishy foam stickers and made paint chip matchbook notepads:
(found on Pink and Green Mama)
 We made tunnel books using index cards:
We made fish using model magic:
 And surf boards out of poster board:
Several of these ideas came from Pink and Green Mama Ocean Fun Art Camp Booklet.

PASSPORT TO THE WORLD OF ART
Each day of camp we went to a different country!
Henna Hands:

Indian Elephants:

Chinese Dragon Puppets:

Chinese Panda Brush Paintings:
Ridgid Wrap masks - inspired by Day of Dead Skulls but they turned out more like Mardi Gras masks!
WOW! that was a lot for one post. Oh well I got it out of my system. Will I teach that much next summer - probably not but I did make some nice extra money for our vacation, got to meet some new kids, and teach in a nice small setting!

Once again I taught our county's summer art program. We offer this program as a way to serve our gifted population. Teachers have to submit their recommendations to our county office and these students will get an invite to register for summer art camp.
We get together with our lead art teacher and the other teachers that will be teaching the camp to create the curriculum. This year our theme was "Splat!" We focused a lot on Dale Chihuly's work thanks to all the great ideas from Mr. E and his district after they had a large Chihuly show in Nashville.
On Day one we had fun decorating lots of paper. We marbleized with shaving cream, made paste papers and added texture with combs, and made bubble prints. Then we learned how to zentangle and added designs to some of our papers we made. We tie dyed shirts and zentangles on them too!!
We watched a YouTube video about Chihuly and we painted with ice cubes and powdered tempera and we also added chalk pastels. This is a great video showing him painting we only watched 5:06 until he end. The best quote "If it starts to feel like work then I will stop."
Here are the ice cube tempra/chalk  paintings:

We made Chihuly inspired sculptures using coffee filters and water bottles.



We used left over tie dye to get these great saturated colors!





We zentangled all week and introduced Lichtenstein for a portrait painting.


The students enjoyed doing a 'blind' zentangle with a white crayon and then used watercolor to make it show up.



Students mounted their favorite ones:





Students had a great time! I also used several of the ideas we did for this camp in another camp I did at a private art camp studio called Tagaloo. My first camp was called Doodlemania 8 of the 10 campers were my students. I start another one tomorrow called Dive into Art with an underwater theme! I have 13 campers at least half are my students!! Great extra money and keeping me busy!!

I taught the Middle School Summer Art Camp at Kettle Run High School from July 12- 15. Here is a re-cap...

Day 1

The metallic colors made some really nice effects.
Then we showed students how to make an accordion fold book that could hold their pinhole images. They cut out their paste papers to use as covers or as additional decoration.

Day 2
We worked with students in the darkroom to show them how to make a positive print from their pinhole negative.
Here are some of the students' best pinhole images:


We discussed Henry Moore and showed photos of him being inspired by rocks and bones. Students chose a bone they liked and drew it realistically. Then they drew it three more times until it was abstracted. From one of the 3 drawings they created a plaster sculpture using a newspaper armature.
Here are some drawings: Mine is on the left - student on the right.
I just love the finish she put on it.

Day 3
We took students to the American Museum of Natural History and the Brian Jungen show at National Museum of the American Indian. They had a blast – even in the rain! We ate lunch in the courtyard at the Hirshhorn since we would be out of the rain. Then we took a walk past the Henry Moore sculptures that were across the street. We stopped for a group shot:
Day 4
Finish everything day! We had students create one more new piece of art – the drawback to the field trip is less art produced but the kids enjoy it so much and they rarely get a chance to go anywhere during the regular school year we feel it is important to keep it in future camps.
Students chose a few items they liked from the bones – or from a new pile of shells and sea creatures. They must have been tired of the bones because all of them chose from the shells! They created a few thumbnails to create a composition they liked – then they enlarged it on 19x19 paper and painted with acrylics. The paints were very yummy and I really enjoyed this. Some students had a hard time with composition and benefited from creating the thumbnails.
here are some thumbnail/painting pairs: (mine is first and includes the original items)




I think this project is where I was of the most help to students. I worked with them to create the best composition with the items they had chosen. I pushed them to create more thumbnails until they were happy with the results and could see the difference between a strong and a weak composition.
Most of the afternoon we worked with students to finish up and choose their best work to go in the art festival which is in April.
Now I can start my summer ~ no more teaching until August 23rd!