Main Street School of the Arts

Harry Potter camp ‘Twas magical this week!

First week of summer camp at Main Street School of the Arts. Painting The World and Toy Making was a blast!

Symmetry is a design element used in art, architecture, and consumer products, plus it is found in nature. It is pleasing to the eye and is a dominant organizational concept.

This week we folded paper in half, wrote our name, traced to create a mirror image - then added crazy details to form a zany creature!

Eli Halpin grew up in Alaska in Anchorage, Alaska. She now lives in Austin Texas. Eli paints many different whimsical animals but she really enjoys painting peacocks that roam free in Austin TX.

Fun facts:
When a male peacock fans its ornamented train for the lady birds, its feathers quiver, emitting a low-frequency sound inaudible to human ears. Depending on whether they want to attract females from far away or up close, they can change the sound by shaking different parts of their feathers.

They don’t have to be killed for their feathers as they shed their train every year, so the feathers can be gathered and sold without the birds coming to any harm. The average lifespan of a peacock in the wild is about 20 years.

This week we had fun simplifying the complex feather design and colored in with watercolor pencils!

This week we started with black paper and use chalk pastels to create a moon glow. We added shadows and highlights to clouds, mountains, land and sea to create a 3-D effect. We worked hard on our light reflections in the water.

We are following a Moonshadow!

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) painted "The Scream" in 1893. He said, "One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream." His color choices, subject matter, and brush strokes created an incredible iconic image that sold for $120 million at auction in 2012.

This week we learned how to draw a screaming face (the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, and entire face change shape and placement) along with the things that make us SCREEEEEEAM!

Not only is utilizing fractals a great tool for drawing trees, it is actually how trees grow in nature. You start with a simple shape for your trunk and main branches, then repeat this smaller branching pattern on the end of every new branch.

This week we painted a monochromatic snow tree scene to create a peaceful and mature painting. Go outside and look at the fractals!

Cai Guo-Qiang (born in 1957) is a Chinese artist living in the US. He primarily utilizes pyrotechnics, with gunpowder and fireworks at the center at the of many of his works. He is most notable for his 2008 involvement in the Beijing Olympics fireworks.

In 1990, Cai began Projects for Extraterrestrials, which consisted of using large fireworks and extensive trails of blazing gunpowder that span across landscapes and building surfaces.

This week our artwork exploded with color!

Tutankhamun, also known as King Tut died at the age of 19 in 1343 B.C. He is so famous because his tomb was found in almost perfect condition in 1922 by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. After five years of searching, they found the steps leading to the entrance to the tomb. The first room they came to was a fake and it had a hidden door that led to the main chamber. From the main chamber two rooms split off. There was a storage room and the burial chamber where the mummy was laid.

Many people died of the so-called curse on King Tut's tomb but we now know that bacteria sealed in the tomb fed on the food in the tomb and killed the workers when it got in their lungs.

This week we created our own sarcophagus face with markers, gold paint, and glitter!

Maurice Sendak (1928 – 2012 is an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He became widely known for his book ”Where the Wild Things Are”, first published in 1963.

His love of books began at an early age when he developed health problems and was confined to his bed. He decided to become an illustrator after watching Walt Disney's film Fantasia at the age of twelve.

Where the Wild Things Are was originally titled Where the Wild Horses Are, and was intended to feature fillies, foals and mares. But there was one problem: Sendak couldn’t draw horses. When he told his editor that the whole horse thing wasn’t going to work out, he recalls her response: “Maurice, what can you draw?”

“Things,” he said, and "things" he drew.

This week we created our own “things” by joining together parts of several other creatures and also created a new name for it!