Paint your own Pottery - Plaster version

With the popularity of "Paint Your Own Pottery" studios in the last few years, we had every reason to seek out a similar activity for our groups.

Unfortunately, we hit one big stumbling block...money.

Bisqueware, the unfinished pottery pieces you'll find in these stores, is very expensive. To provide these ceramic lovely bowls, vases, boxes and figurines wouldn't be cost effective. Not to mention, they also require a second firing in the kiln, which, if space in your kiln is an issue, might be a problem.

That's why I was so happy to run into the nice people from Millie's Plaster Craft at a recent convention. They offer plaster molded pieces, at a fraction of the cost of bisqueware. They simply need to be painted with acrylic paints, and sprayed with an acrylic glaze.

Instant gratification in just 45 minutes. This project appeals to ALL ages, boys and girls alike, and the final product will look great hanging up in a bedroom, kitchen, or family room.

Beeswax Candles

Working with beeswax has many advantages. We made these lovely candles in our very first week of camp this summer. The campers had an awful lot of fun with "Wikki-Stix", which they used to embellish these works of art.

We allowed each camper to make to candles, each were about 6 inches tall. The sheets of beeswax are fairly pliable, and after cutting a piece, we tightly wrap the wax around the wicking, (leaving about 1/4 inch or so at the top).

My favorite part of beeswax? It has a lovely sweet scent...what could be better?

Extreme Checkers

For each project, you will need:

1 square piece of plywood (I think ours was 12x12)
Sandpaper
Acrylic Paints
Masking Tape
Ruler
Pencil
Paint Brushes
16 Bottle Caps (available online or at craft stores)
2 colors of polymer clay to compliment board colors
Envirotex Lite (or spray glaze)
Jewels, Glitter, Puffy Paint (optional)

1. Sand your board down to eliminate splinters
2. A light base coat can be put down now ( optional)
2. Measure one inch all around, for border and 8 even lines up and down and across.
3. Using masking tape, tape off areas, and paint your first color in remaining boxes.
4. Dry either overnight, or speed up the process with a blow dryer or heat gun.
5. Remove tape, and tape over areas that have already been painted
6. Paint second color in empty areas
7. Touch up any uneven parts.
8. When painting is complete, embellishments can be added, such as jewels, glitter, puffy paint etc. (As long as embellishments are put on outer edges of board, ONLY)
9. Roll polymer clay out, so that it is fairly thick. Using bottle caps, like cookie cutters, slice into the clay, so that the clay sticks into the underside of the cap.
10. Bake bottle cap and clay according to package directions
11. When cool, spray caps with Acrylic glaze or brush clear nail polish on to give a finished look.
12. Following package directions, pour Envirotech Lite on the top of the board. This will give your board an AWESOME shine and very professional finish. (If Envirotech is unavailable, you can substitute Spray Glaze...but seriously, the Envirotech is the BEST!)

Pottery Solutions

Being the Art Lady at camp has its share of advantages (creative opportunities, the happiest job in camp, meeting wonderful campers and staff members, and lots of messy time), but a couple of disadvantages. Being the only Art Lady, sometimes, I (mistakingly) believe that I'm the only one in the UNIVERSE that has a job like mine.

NOT TRUE!

So, when I read this article on the ACA (American Camping Association) website, it felt like finally someone understood my issues!

I thought I'd share this insightful article on running a successful Pottery program in a camp environment.

Link:

Pop Art!

I'm home from camp, and very glad to say I had an extremely successful and fulfilling summer. I was surprised to see how relatively busy the blog has gotten in my absence. I guess simple art projects are always in demand!

Anyhow, I wanted to share a new project today. This was a great idea given to me by Samantha, one of my staff members from Australia. It was wonderful, the kids loved it, inexpensive and easy as pie.

We started out taking photos of each camper, in front of a simple background. We encouraged the girls not to smile with their mouths open, instead, to pose in an "artsy" fashion. We wanted to avoid photos looking like mug-shots or yearbook photos.

Next, we opened up the photos in Photo-Shop. By converting photos to Black and White, and playing with the brightness and the contrast (and if you are familiar with Photo-Shop, this only takes a tiny bit of practice), we were able to change the picture to look more "cartoonish".

We printed photos onto Transparency Paper, (we made 3 copies of each photo...5x7 sized).

Once photos were printed, we provided construction paper to the campers, which they ripped and cut, and basically made collages, in bright colors underneath the transparencies. We let them make several versions of the same picture, each with different color underneath.

Finally, we mounted the whole creation on black construction paper.

The camper's parents went INSANE, and each parent commented that this project was frame able art. I totally agree.