conceptual art inspired by Matt Browning and Michael Drebert

During the Contemporary Art themed camp week, I decided to share a couple of artist I discovered while leading school group tours through the Vancouver Art Gallery's Vancouver Special:Ambivalent Pleasures exhibition.

Surprisingly I discovered that children really responded to conceptual art where the idea is more important than the result and were fascinated by the artwork of Matt Browning's collapsable wood sculptures carved from one piece of wood!

Matt Browning. untitled 2014

You read that right, one piece of wood! The time and labor that went into these works was mind boggling and kids were duly impressed. Browning's idea of creating sculptures that took time resonated with a generation of children where everything is available to them instantly, including the ones in my art camp.

The other artist in this room at the exhibition the children were excited about was Michael Drebert. Again working with the idea of labor and time, he refurbished a boat he called Poppy, built some oars, and then rowed out to Flower Island each day for the summer. At the end, he painted a very large but simple graphic poppy symbol on paper in india ink to represent the task and journey.

I liked the idea of presenting a project that took time, even if it was just a week of time during the camp. But I also worried that the children would not respond well to the project as there would be no instant gratification. 

I decided to have them spend the week building rubber band balls. I love my own. I have been adding to it for the past 7 years every time I get a rubber band from the weekly neighborhood newspaper delivered to my door or on the vegetables I purchase at the grocer. It is now the size of a softball and my family knows not to mess with one of my most coveted possessions.

I shared my rubber band ball with the kids, discussed the artwork of Browning and Drebert, and introduced creating a conceptual artwork based on labor and time.

Beyond my wildest imagination I could not of anticipated how much the kids would enjoy building a rubber band ball. Several of them asked to take the project home at night in order to continue adding rubber bands to the ball.  I was thrilled and where I thought four bags of rubber bands would be more than enough before the kids lost interest in the project, I ended up buying another five bags and would of needed more had the week not ended.

They were not easy to start. I did not give the kids a wadded up piece of paper to begin wrapping with, these are made strictly from rubber bands. Where I worried kids would want to give up or get frustrated at the beginning as starting the balls was challenging or get bored with the repetitive task of adding endless rubber bands to build the ball was all for nothing. Of all the projects the children created, I believe these balls were what they left the studio with most excited and proud of that week.

After building these rubber band ball "sculptures" inspired by Matt Brownings' wood carvings, it was time to create a symbolic artwork of the labor inspired by Michael Drebert.

I put out india ink, brushes and quill pens. We discussed symbolic drawings and then I sat back and watched these young artist figure out a way to symbolically represent their rubber band balls they had worked so hard on all week.

7 year old

9 year old

A couple of children created strong, simple black line images in keeping with Drebert's work but others began to add their own details and twist.

10 year old

9 year old

Adding shadow, color

6 year old

and even action to their artwork!

7 year old

Do I think these artworks will end up framed in their bedrooms? no

Do I think the balls are displayed and coveted at home? yes

And do I think these young artist walked away having had fun discovering conceptual contemporary artist and exploring creating work where the idea was more important than the results? absolutely

Betty Woodman inspired acrylic and clay mixed media

A couple of months ago I completed a week art camp focused on Contemporary Art. The children ranged in age from 6 to 10 years old.

Contemporary Art basically means any art created in the last 30 years and I think it is important for children to understand that all artist are not dead or lived a long time ago. That there is a vibrant and exciting art community today for them to discover.

I tried to highlight some artist that they and probably their parents have not heard of before too. Also trying to spice it up a bit for me as I would have to create new projects and learn some new facts about some artist I have been interested in but maybe didn't know a lot about.

I do try to highlight a large variety of mediums in art camps and of course one is clay. I began researching some contemporary artist working in clay and kept coming back to Betty Woodman.

Especially the works where she is incorporating paintings with her ceramics.

9 year old

The work was colorful and full of pattern. I had a sneaky suspicion that these two things would really resonate with the kids. She also had some very interesting work that highlighted negative space, you can see one of the young artist also found it interesting too as he created a mirror image of his ceramic using negative space.

7 year old, "windowsill sillies"

We looked at a series of her artworks together and the kids all had an opportunity to really look and discuss what they saw in the work. We then talked about some of the elements they could use to create their artwork inspired by Betty Woodman.

7 year old "dill pickle"

I was so impressed with how the young artist interpreted what they saw in Woodman's art in their own original creations.

10 year old "wall sconce"

They embraced the use of vibrant colors and created all their own colors using a primary palette.

7 year old, "where did that butterfly go?"

They enjoyed playing with pattern and repetition too.

9 year old, "garden vase"

And they fully committed to adding clay elements to their artworks and enjoyed solving the puzzle of how to incorporate clay into a painting.

It was a fun project that the kids seemed to really enjoy. The icing on the cake was the marvelous results they all achieved in the end.

O'keeffe inspired acrylics

How could I do a camp themed on doing everything supersize and not utilize Georgia O'Keeffe for the acrylic project?

10 year old

We spent some time looking through a large book I have of all her flower paintings. We debriefed several of the artworks and the kids had a lot of insightful things to say.

6 year old

6 year old

Each child was given a large canvas to use for their creation and I cut flowers and leaves from my backyard for reference. For fun I gave each of them some white gesso with a palette knife and a piece of cardboard to experiment creating texture on their canvases before painting.

We did this at the end of the camp the day before so it had time to dry by the next morning.

7 year old

They had the option to focus on one leaf, one flower or several from the bunches I brought into the studio.

6 year old

They mixed all their own colors from a primary palette with black and white.

8 year old

Although it would be cool, I do not have carnivorous plants in my backyard. This child utilized the file cabinet full of reference for this painting. However the addition of the spider was all his own!

9 year old

Love how each child interpreted the project and the wide variety of flower paintings we had at the end.

9 year old