Tag Archives: art camp

Color the City Summer Workshops!

The Color the City Art Camp Dates have been adjusted to meet the needs of our exciting new undertaking! We will be designing park towers and posts for the City of Ft. Lauderdale in this 1 week camp. Age groups have been merged to allow sufficient group collaboration to design & create together these beautiful artworks! Spaces limited. Apply below

city park posts

Chalk Mural Course

As many of you know I do street painting festivals throughout the year & to promote events in the local area. I also had the opportunity to teach the art of street painting at the Coral Springs Museum of art this month to a few youngsters ages 9-11. They didn’t know what to expect in a chalk mural class, but they quickly learned this isn’t merely “draw on the street” time for 3 hours. We learned how to mathematically measure & grid an image onto a larger surface by carefully studying proportions & measurements of an image. We began indoors recreating this beautiful lion from Apple wallpaper images in google.

Each student received a 1×1″ cut square from the photo and magnified their square 4 times the size. We used chalk pastel to copy what we saw onto a larger square, then adhered each piece to a larger grid I drew for them.

The end result was beautiful! They truly had to maintain focus on what they saw in their tiny abstract squares, and had to trust it would add up to form this beautiful puzzle in the end.

Day 3-4 we ventured outside to work on our large scale temporary mural as a group. I found an awesome black and white owl illustration by Ben Kwok of deviant art online. We each measured and applied a 1×1″ grid to our 6×8″ images. We then multiplied the owl 20x bigger onto the pavement using chalked string to snap down the straight lines of our grid. We applied box by box, adding bright color to each so they had contrast. Here is our result!

The public arts panel at the Coral Springs Museum of Art is planning to display this piece as apart of a series of decoupaged light boxes around the city of Coral Springs! The girls are excited to see their work on a more permanent display! More to come….

Summer Art in the City

The city of Lighthouse Point is getting some new public art this summer, thanks to our first City Summer Art Camp that ran June 9-13th, 2014. 26 kids kids ranging from ages 6-13 dove into bins of colorful tiles, designing personal mosaic creations and park benches for the city. We owe a HUGE thanks to local businesses Tiles of Pompano, D & B Tile, & Budget Tile for their generous contributions to our summer camp!
I first had the kids experiment with the “direct method” of mosaic making by gluing right onto 4×4″ tiles and grouting. (Wearing gloves of course, the fun part)

We proceeded to mosaic a larger piece to enter into Pompano Beach ArtHall’s student exhibit in August. By day 3 we were onto our bench designs, working in teams at our tables in groups of 5 or 6. I explained the “indirect method”” of mosaic making by laying out a cardboard template the exact dimensions of the bench backs, and having them plan and lay down the tiled design. Next, we carefully transfered the pieces onto 6″ sections of sticky contact paper by pressing them over each section of the design. I slathered on thinset cement carefully and had the kids press their contact sheets of tiles into the mortar until the bench was filled and they dried overnight.

Some groups created a mosaic of random colors & tiles, others an underwater scene, a lighthouse & a fish. The boys helped me stir up the grout outside after the tiles had dried in their bed of cement and we smoothed and sponged off the excess grout to fill in all the gaps. We even had a local reporter stop by to see our creations on the last day of camp! The kids had a blast & did some amazing artwork they will remember forever!
The following week I returned to sand the edges, seal the grout and prep all the benches for their public installation. I will post pics of the installed benches as they go up at Dan Witt park & other local spots in the city.
More city art projects to come! Great job artists!