| youth art | summer art adventures
| kids from everywhere
Eleven young artists ranging from rising second through rising twelfth grades from local public schools, a community school, homeschool, and school systems across the state and from other states crossed paths for a week of artistic exploration to create a truly dynamic mix of youth who shared a passion for art and nature this summer.
| image | a high school student’s interpretation of summer, representing the tranquility of sand, sun, and the rise and fall of ocean tides.
| image | an elementary school student’s interpretation of summer, with colors and textures chosen to evoke a summer festival.
| image | a rising second-grade artist adds a row of tinsel yarn to her mandala, which features colors and textures that depict the joy she feels during the winter season.
| up for a challenge
The Summer Art Adventure day camp, led by FAC Assistant Director Sydney Sieviec and assisted by Director Dan Butner, took place at a studio retreat in Traphill the week of Monday, June 20 through Friday, June 24. All students participated in the projects regardless of the difficulty, and the resulting artwork was nothing short of remarkable.
For three hours each afternoon, students explored and celebrated the natural world through their art by creating yarn mandalas representing the colors, temperatures, and emotions experienced during their choice of seasons, with older students working quickly enough that many chose to represent two different seasons across two separate weavings. During this process, students learned how to turn a simple four-sided mandala into an eight-sided creation using a joining technique, then learned a variety of patterns to complement their designs, including a diamond, an octagon, a false star, and true eight-sided star.
Students also designed insects using a technical gridded drawing method, transferred their drawings by creating their own “carbon paper,” then embellished their designs to create vibrant layers of color using carefully layered colored pencil application. Students could optionally enhance their finished drawings with metallic gold, silver, or copper paints, and each was matted and placed in a cellophane sleeve for safekeeping and display.
Finally, art camp participants designed mobile sculptures featuring origami butterflies folded from handmade lotka papers, with their mobile armatures wrapped in yarns and ribbons that coordinated with their butterfly color theme.