Summer Camps...time to prepare!

So, even though school is out for MNPS students, I am preparing to teach a variety of summer art camps. A local museum and botanical garden, Cheekwood, is celebrating it's 50th anniversary in a big way. Working in conjunction with the Frist Center and the Nashville Symphony, a large Chihuly exhibition is being held at both Cheekwood and the Frist, while the Nashville Symphony performed Bluebeard's Castle using sets designed and created by Chihuly. I got to see the symphony, and it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! Chihuly is one of my favorite artists, and I, of course an so excited to use this opportunity in my summer camps. I am teaching 6 different camps at Cheekwood, which means that my students can have some hands "off" (after all, we can't touch the art) experience with Chihuly. I am also teaching at Art-al-Sol, a 2 week long summer art camp provided by MNPS. There are 2 sessions, each a week long for students 8-13 years old. Of course, I am planning Art-al-Sol around Chihuly, and found an amazing wealth of lessons online to incoporate in the camp. I found a couple of great lessons at http://www.dickblick.com/ including this one using dura-lar, hot water and Vitrea 160 paint. http://cdn.dickblick.com/lessonplans/classroom-chihuly/classroom-chihuly-chihuly.pdf


This one is so easy! I cut three organic shapes out of the dura-lar, one large and two small. Then, I bent and curled the plastic into very organic shapes, and dunked it into boiling water, which caused the plastic to retain the shape I had bent it into. After drying off the plastic, I painted it with the vitrea 160, a glass paint that can be baked onto glass ware for a permanent finish. With the dura-lar however, you cannot bake it, just let it dry. I can't wait until the kids try it!