Can't believe the summer is almost up. Wow, it seems to just go by so fast. I am looking forward to school and work though. Looking forward to the structure of the day and the kids and art making. Looking forward to fall too. Though I'm certainly not ready, just looking forward.
So, during art camp last week, I wanted to do clay one day. I saved it for the last day, so the kids could get creative with it while I displayed last minute art for the artshow at the end of the day. I made cornstarch and salt clay. I tripled the recipe, which made it really hard to manage in the making process. It required heating over the stove and with that much clay it was hard to stir. I would do it again, just not so much. Anyways, the kids made a crayon holder and then whatever kind of animal they wanted. I really liked the whiteness of this clay, and the fact that it air dried.
Had a little inspiration from my friend Carla. It was her birthday yesterday and she was so excited about it. Giddy, like a five year old. And because she's crafty, I knew she would enjoy this.
We did self portraits at camp last week. The girls drew out their head, shoulders and hair. Next they painted just the skin, hair and shirt.
We set them aside to dry. Then once they were dry, they added features, details and background patterns with oil pastels. We had to go easy on the blush, didn't want to over do it. The nice thing about the pastels, was you could color over if you made a mistake.
And, isn't this adorable. We made collaged foliage figures at art camp 
Also, today we did weaving. This is with a 3by5 piece of cardboard with 4 slits cut in the top and the bottom and yarn. The kids picked as many colors as they could fit and went over under etc.
They also decorated the edge of the cardboard piece to add interest. They usually picked yarn that went with their boarder. Just Crayola water color markers did the trick.
We added beads to the necklace part and also a few fringy beady dangles on the bottom. They all came out great and are on display for the art show Friday.
Here's my sample that I wore. Not sure if it goes with my floral patterend dress, but I worked it anyway. 
It's only day 2 of art camp the second week and I learned so much the first time, that it has made this time around really easy. Today we made these houses out of popsicle sticks or craft sticks. The kids colored the sticks and added designs then we hot glued them onto a piece of black construction paper, added a few colored wooden sticks, used pencils and part of a ruler.
The end results are amazing. I mounted them onto a colored piece of construction paper and they are ready for our art show on Friday. 
Do you know that you can get within about 100 yards of the hollywood sign? I didn't, but with a friend, a little persistance and an address and a GPS, you can get pretty close. This is something really fun and free to do in LA. It's in a residential neighborhood so we didn't stay long, but it was amazing to see it up close and personal. Here's the address if you are feeling adventureous.
Ymmm! Found this recipe on this blog for the incredible pie. It was gone in a day. Super easy to make and only took 20 minutes to bake. Be forewarned though, it's really sweet.
So we went over to Sarah's house to swim and also to help her paint some garden stones. She got them in the discount section of a building supply store for a buck each. I'm thinking I need some for my yard as well. This was really fun. Even her 2 year old got into it. Here she is, Momma is going to add her hand prints after her painted stone dries.
My Emma did this one. Can you tell she loves frogs?
And, here is one that I did. I think I am going to be going to the building supply store real soon. Thanks Sarah for a fun afternoon.
Its been a while since I put any pics on flickr, but I practiced making this tile sampler with the pics I had on their already. It was fun to go back and look at art from a few years ago. I really enjoying having a creative outlet. It makes everything ok.
Getting ready for another week of artcamp. Looking forward to being creative with my little artist friends. Looks like the weather is going to be mild which will make for pleasant artmaking. We will be doing a wide range of mixed media projects: painting, drawing, collage, sculpture and mobiles again. Let me know if you need more info.....