July Classes
All July classes are full. Please email to be added to the waiting list
July 7-11
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’ll 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.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to the waiting list
CLASS FULL
July 7-11
Paper, Pigments & Play
(ages 6-10)
Lahri Bond
Paper is perhaps the most common, versatile and easily overlooked of art materials. This week-long class will discover the myriad ways paper can be used to create exciting and playful projects. Children will have the opportunity to explore traditional uses of paper such as paintings, collage and paper maché sculpture. We’ll spend some time making and marbleizing paper, as well as exploring fun projects like giant pinwheels, articulated dragon puppets, and paper quilled 3-dimensional pictures. Our days will be spent outside, playing noncompetitive games and exploring the source of all paper, the beautiful woods found on the Hampshire College campus. Please bring a lunch, water and a snack.
Mon.-Fri., July 7-11, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to the waiting list
CLASS FULL
July 14-18
Muddy Days: Clay Session I
(ages 7-10)
Deborah Bazer
Do you love having delightfully muddy hands, and can’t get enough of clay, that gorgeous squishy stuff that comes from the ground? Clay, you can push it, pull it, poke it into just about anything you can imagine. Here is a class for kids who want to seriously explore the art of clay. We’ll learn about where clay comes from, and how to make amazing art with it. We’ll learn coil, pinch, and slab techniques, and then finish our work with colorful slip (liquid colored clay) and glaze. We’ll also have plenty of time for exploring some other malleable materials, playing games, 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 few weeks after class. Please bring a lunch, water, and a snack.
Mon.-Fri., July 14-18, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to waiting list
CLASS FULL
July 14-18
Beastly Fun:
An Intro to LARP-ing for Younger Kids
(ages 7-10)
Lahri Bond
For centuries, children spent significant time outdoors playing make-believe, with no need of digital stimuli. LARPing or Live Action Role Playing is a fun and healthy way of creating fantasy worlds through roleplaying and artmaking. Beasts, elves, faeries, mythological creatures and wizards, as well as knights and warriors will be brought to life with costumes, masks and magical implements made from paper maché, cloth, pool noodles and cardboard for imaginative play. Emphasis will be on adventure over battle. 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, as well as hearing magical stories of Fionn Mac Cumhail, King Arthur and other Celtic heroes. Please bring your lunch, water, snack, cape, and your imaginations.
Mon.-Fri., July 14-18, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to waiting list
CLASS FULL
July 21-25
Nature Art Studio for Older Kids
(ages 11-15)
Deborah Bazer
If you are wanting a more serious focus on art, in this class, you will be able to spend time learning about different materials and honing new skills. We’ll begin by sampling drawing, painting, clay, printmaking, and fiber arts, then choosing what mediums to focus more closely on. We will also spend our time exploring the woods and fields, interacting with the environment and documenting our explorations and observations in our beautiful handmade sketchbooks. Using natural materials, as well as a wide variety of traditional art supplies, we’ll create art individually and together in a group. Choice might include improving drawing skills, create our own inks, or discover the joy of dying wool with plants for use in weaving, felting or knitting. Choose what kind of art interests you the 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, your open mind and your imagination.
Mon.-Fri., July 21-25, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to waiting list
For
Ages
11-15
CLASS FULL
July 21-25
Fabulous Felines & Cantankerous Kitties
(ages 5-9)
Lahri Bond
We’re not kitten, when we say this class will have you feline good. Students will draw, paint, make masks and three-dimensional cats in paper maché, while hearing remarkable tales of human-kind’s other “best friend.” Come be whiskered away as we hear paw-sitive stories, meow-velous myths, and hiss-terical folk tales of ferocious felines, cantankerous kitties, and terrific tabbies, while creating fabulous furry creations. 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 and a snack. A won-fur-full good time is guaranteed fur all.
Mon.-Fri., July 21-25, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to waiting list
CLASS FULL
July 28-August 1
CLASS FULL
Dragon Scales and Selchie Tales
(ages 7-10)
Deborah Bazer
Do you love folklore, mythology and fantasy stories? Are you a fan of books such as the Wings of Fire series, When the Sea Turns Silver, The Earthsea Trilogy, Greyling or the Hobbit? Come step through the looking glass with us as we enter the magical lands of your imagination. We’ll transform paint, chalk pastel and papier mâché into dragons, unicorns, selchies and a whole host of legendary beasties. We’ll make books for drawing and creating our own stories using our handmade marbleized paper and feather quill pens. Along the way, we’ll take a look at myth inspired artwork and hear stories from around the world about magical and mystical creatures. We’ll spend snack, lunch and free time in the enchanted green spaces of Hampshire College campus and woods. Perhaps we’ll even meet a woods dragon or a friendly troll in our travels…
Mon.-Fri., July 29-August 2,
8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to waiting list
Wizards, Sorceresses & Warriors:
Live Action Role-playing
(ages 11-16)
Lahri Bond
LARPing or Live Action Role Playing is a fun and healthy way of creating fantasy worlds through roleplaying and artmaking. Students will begin by designing a character that they wish to inhabit for the whole week. Wizards, trolls, dwarves, Hobbits and sorceresses play as important roles as knights and warriors in these games. Emphasis will be on adventure, teamwork and strategy. We will establish mutually agreed upon rules of engagement, before making the various magical tools the characters need. Implements might include wands, boffer swords, armor, leaf crowns and heraldic shields, all made with paper maché, cloth, pool noodles, cardboard and a wide range of recycled materials. There will also be plenty of time spent in the green spaces and woods, to fully immerse ourselves in the magical worlds we’ve created, as well as time for hearing magical stories of Fionn Mac Cumhail, King Arthur and other Celtic heroes. Please bring your lunch, water, snack, cape, and your imaginations.
Mon.-Fri., July 22-26, 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
CLASS FULL - Please email to be added to waiting list
July 28-August 1
