Minature Castles

In our parent and child class, we built smaller castles, with cardboard and other found objects.

I only wish someone would have shown me how to make art from cardboard and other junk when I was a kid. Or maybe they did but my mom wouldn't let me have it around because, it looked like junk and not like interior decorations... Too bad Moms and Pops your kids are coming home with a knew philosophy on life and how to use their creativity. They are coming home with an attitude to reduce-reuse and recycle and create.

Queens and Kings of Cardboard

It was one of our most beautiful days of spring yet and our mixed media class Art Start was able to build outside. They didn't only build a castle from cardboard, they played dress up, got married and drank lemonade. It was beautiful!
We used appliance boxes that Dan from Lowes gladly donated to the arthouse. The students helped assemble the boxes together and made marks where they wanted windows and doors, and decorations. Molly (my assistant) and I cut them out with utility knives. The kids were a bit to young to use such a sharp tool. Although, this didn't stop them from showing us where they wanted the doggy door and intricate details.

Don't forget our royal wedding!
I love the way we can take this material (cardboard) and reuse it for play and art. We'll maybe reuse it 3 or 4 more times in other projects before it actually gets recycled.
One of our creative and distinctive students Gracie West giving me a salute.
Our King Paige Smucker peaking out the castle window.
This project brought the kids into character, they took over the class, it was their time to create, costume design, role play etc... It's the best part of my job, when I can give my students a project that sparks something inside their creative minds and they take over their own education.



The students and I enjoyed this project so much that maybe next time we'll create individual castles that every King and Queen can take home to play with in their own back yards:) or maybe just a miniature.

Sculpture and Clay class projects

The Jamieson's are a family of artists and art lovers, which means they make art at least 12 hours a day. This is a picture of our entire family (even Gustav the art dog) constructing one of William Jamieson's famous Abstract Expressionist ceramic sculptures. Michelle Spitz from http://www.2pedalsphotography.com/ took this lovely shot, and sooner than later I'll share some more of her insight into our personal world at the Arthouse. Yes, we do live here and no I never get tired of making art, although my six year old daughter would sometimes rather eat worms...
These are some past students glazing their ceramic hand built sculptures, preparing them for a firing.
In our Clay and sculpture classes the students learn to make pinch pots, coil, slab cups and other 3dimenisional structures they are interested in.

These are the houses made from slabs of clay, they are leather hard...not quite dry enough to fire.


One of our students is scoring the edges preparing to put slip (clay glue) on the house.

The students get to spend an hour and a half on their projects. During our school year sessions we meet once a week. Although, we are coming up to our summer camps. We'll have 4 sessions and each session we meet 4 times a week. This will be a great time to do very detailed work in clay and sculpture.
Last week it was nice enough to work outside! So, the students built abstract architecture type structures.

We have our classes in all ages, as you can see we have some early teen mixed with younger youth students. They work together solving problems and creating beautiful works of art.

A little collaboration and a lot of fun.
Come take a class at the Arthouse, where art lives and grows...

Spring Session April-June 2011

We're doing fun new things this session for the parent/guardian and child classes. Let us not exclude Fathers and Grand-parents, it's not just a Mommy and me class:) First we have a new Mural painting class. We will work on large scale mural, which will be installed outside as public art the for all to see. Also we offer a Clay class where we use hand building techniques to make multiple sculptures from clay that will will be fired and glazed. In our drawing and painting class we will be working with multiple drawing materials; charcoal, graphite, pastels, ink etc and painting in water colors and acrylic. Finally, the Art Start class is our most popular class, because you get a variety of all mediums, clay, paint, fibers, sculpture, drawing... I hope to hear from you at the arthouse. Come and enjoy making art with our children along with the company of other parents.