July Classes
We still have room in the following classes!
July 24-28
Puppet Escapades
(ages 6-10)
Lahri Bond
Puppets have been loved by children for centuries. They are also an age-old form of theater and communication, often allowing children to safely act out their dreams, fantasies, and emotions. Over the course of the week, we will focus on Muppet-style hand puppets. Along the way, children will gain skills in sewing, paper maché, construction, painting, and character creation, with a group puppet performance ending this week of playful fun. An equal share of the day will be spent playing noncompetitive games and exploring the beautiful woods of the Hampshire College campus. Please bring a lunch, water, snack, and your imaginations.
Mon.-Fri., July 24-28, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
$340.00 - price includes materials
July 24-28
For Ages
11-14
Nature Art Studio for Older Kids
(ages 11-14)
Deborah Bazer
Here is a class designed especially for older kids. If you are wanting a more serious focus on art, you will be able to spend time learning about different techniques and materials and honing new skills. We will spend our time outside, drawing, painting, and making sculpture. We’ll explore the woods and fields, interacting with the environment, observing, and documenting our experiences in our sketchbooks. If fantasy art is more your interest, we can search for dragons and other mythological creatures in the forest to add to our art. We’ll use natural materials, as well as a wide variety of traditional art supplies, learning about perspective, shadow, form, and line. We’ll also create our own inks and explore dying wool with plants to use for weaving or knitting. Choose what kind of art interests you most and enjoy a week of exploring it more fully. There will be plenty of time to share stories of all kinds, while we work. Bring your enthusiasm and your imagination.
Mon.-Fri., July 24-28, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
$340.00 - price includes materials
The camps below are full, but you can request to be put on a waiting list. Please email us with the class you are interested in.
July 10-14
A Faeries Garden
(ages 5-9)
Deborah Bazer
Join us for a week of painting, drawing, sewing, and sculpting all things faerie! We will create our own portable faerie gardens using clay, bark, stones, seeds, and plants. Then, we will draw and paint faerie images of our own, as well as design ourselves a pair of fabric faerie wings and flower crowns. We’ll also explore the work of such artists as Brian and Wendy Froud, Arthur Rackham, and Alan Lee, who love to draw and sculpt faeries. While we work, we’ll hear and tell stories of those gentle and magical creatures of the good green woods. At snack and lunch times, it’s off to the woods and fields, for imaginative play, faerie house building and non-competitive games. If we look carefully, perhaps we’ll even see some tiny visitors. Please bring a lunch, water, and a snack.
Mon.-Fri., July 10-14, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CAMP FULL - please email to be added to a waiting list
CAMP FULL
July 10-14
Super Powered Kids
(ages 6-10)
Lahri Bond
While such characters Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Spiderman have captured imaginations in popular movies and cartoons, their origins are in the simple line drawings and fertile imaginations of young artists. We will explore the art of visual storytelling, first by learning to draw some of our favorite cartoon and comic characters, then by inventing our own. Over an action-packed week, we will illustrate multi-paneled stories, and then make our own masks, symbols, utility belts, and super-gear to become the actual superheroes we have drawn. Artmaking, snack, lunches, and noncompetitive games will be spent outside under the shaded solar canopy and exploring the beautiful woods of the Hampshire College campus. Please bring a lunch, water and a snack.
Mon.-Fri., July 10-14, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CAMP FULL - please email to be added to a waiting list
CAMP FULL
July 17-21
Muddy Days: Clay Session I
(ages 7-10)
Deborah Bazer
With delightfully muddy hands, we will create a wide array of art using clay, that gorgeous squishy stuff that comes from the ground! You can push it, pull it, poke it into just about anything you can imagine. Come learn about where clay comes from, and how to make amazing art with it. We'll use coil, pinch and slab techniques, and then finish it with colorful slip (liquid colored clay) and glaze. We’ll also have plenty of time outside for playing games, exploring other malleable materials, as well as hearing and telling stories of magical and muddy places. All artwork from this session will be fired and ready for pick up a month after class. Please bring a lunch, water and a snack.
Mon.-Fri., July 17-21, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CAMP FULL - please email to be added to a waiting list
CAMP FULL
July 17-21
For Ages
11-15
Wizards, Sorceresses & Warriors:
Live Action Role-playing
(ages 11-15)
Lahri Bond
Long before video games and iDevices, children spent significant time outdoors playing make-believe. LARPing or Live Action Role Playing is a fun and healthy way of creating fantasy worlds through roleplaying and artmaking. Children will begin by designing a character that they wish to inhabit for the whole week. Wizards, elves, faeries, and sorceresses play as important roles as knights and warriors in these games. Emphasis will be on adventure over battle. We will then establish mutually agreed upon rules of engagement, before making the various magical tools the characters need. Implements might include wands, boffer swords, wizard’s hats, armor, leaf crowns and heraldic shields, made with paper maché, cloth, pool noodles and cardboard for imaginative play. There will also be plenty of time spent in the green spaces and woods, for finding dragons hidden in the landscape, building faerie forts, and making magical habitats in nature. Please bring your lunch, water, snack, cape, and your imaginations.
Mon.-Fri., July 17-21, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CAMP FULL - please email to be added to a waiting list
CAMP FULL