Charlotte Caron inspired portraits

I thought it would be fun to introduce some of the work of artist Charlotte Caron in the Birds of a Feather camp.

Charlotte Caron

I mean, who wouldn't want to turn themselves into a bird?

Or any of the other animals Caron so brilliantly melds with photographs?

But for this camp, we stuck with the birds.

9 year old

Or in the case of one child, her cat because she was just about done drawing birds by the end of the week when I introduced this project.

7 year old

Earlier in the week, I had each child pose for a side portrait photo. I did not tell them why I was doing it, I left that up to the wilds of their imaginations.

Which created some pretty wild stories!

7 year old

Before printing the photos off my computer, I made all of them black and white. Then when the time was right, gave each child their photograph and a box of oil pastels.

9 year old

Once they got over laughing at their sullen side portraits, they got to work turning themselves into birds.

5 year old

I had expected they would just color in the faces, but before you knew it the kids were creating new hair colors and clothing too!

7 year old

It was fun to watch them create an artwork from a photograph of themselves.

5 year old

And a great project to run towards the end of the week when I didn't have a lot of time for paint to dry. 

I know I'm a lover of the quirky at the best of times and this project certainly makes my heart sing. 

I'm sure you'll agree this group of campers make a darling group of birds.