Maui Art Camp!

The wonderful partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters has resulted with me bringing back the summer art camp program I ran before traveling in Asia for three years.  Maui Art Camp will take place at the Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentoring Center in Wailuku for five fantastic weeks this summer (map).

There will be five fantastic themes, and classes for children ages 6-8 and ages 9-12.

Visit mauiartcamp.com to register!

Art On the Go--Partnering with Big Brothers Big Sisters and Honolulu Museum of Art

Before even landing back on Maui I had a project.

Art On The Go is an outreach program between Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Honolulu Museum of Art, which had recently been expanded to include Maui.

The plan was to run art classes for the Littles (at-risk kids in elementary school) and Bigs (volunteering high schoolers) during their after school gatherings at various schools around Maui.

We especially wanted to create projects that encouraged each Big and Little pair to interact and create a closer bond.  The project became mixed media portraits.

Our supplies were: transparency sheets (the kind every office has stashed half-forgotten in some cabinet, leftover from the era of overhead projectors), colored Sharpies, colored paper, oil pastels, and colored masking tape.  We also had scissors, and most importantly, transparent clipboards.

Using the transparency sheets attached to the transparent clipboards, the young artists were able to trace their partner's portrait.

This sounds easier than it is!  If either person moves their head a little bit, the face becomes a Picasso!  So we worked at our cooperation and focus... but if a person's face started to turn abstract, then the artist would make new creative choices to still turn it into a fantastic work of art.  In art, a "mistake" is simply a time when you get to make new choices you weren't expecting.  You get to try a new path and be even more creative!

Another side-effect of tracing your partner's face, is that you can't help but make some very silly faces.  (It's easiest to trace if you close one eye.)

Each artist took a turn drawing the portrait and experimenting with these fun challenges. Once they finished, the Bigs and Littles decide: did they want to continue to color the portrait of their partner that they drew, or color the portrait of their self that their partner drew?  Sometimes they even decided to color both pieces together.  Regardless, each artwork was collaborative to some extent.

 Amazingly, oil pastels work wonderfully on transparency sheets--especially the ones that have a slightly rough film on one side meant for photocopying.  The trick is to color on the opposite side as where you drew with Sharpie.  The Bigs and Littles experimented with blending oil pastels and expressive rather than realistic color.  Once finished, colored paper was placed behind the drawing.

The final touch was a border made out of colored masking tape, which also held all the elements together.  This border often became a project all of its own as the young artists experimented with cutting shapes and making patterns using the tape, as well as coloring the tape with the markers.

Look for these expressive portraits in Whole Foods in Kahului in August--we're taking over their gallery space!

Collaborative coloring at Pukalani Elementary School

The frame pulls it all together! Lahaina students use tape to add patterns.

Completed Masterpieces at Pukalani Elementary.

The Wailuku group at the Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentoring Center

Big and Little artists of Kamehameha Schools, Maui Campus

Princess Nahienaena Littles and Lahainaluna Bigs
talk about their finished portraits.

Kahului Elementary School Littles and Maui High School Bigs

Special Thanks to Rae Takemoto for the clipboards and the key secrets to making this project work!  (i.e. when your partner is drawing you and you are holding the clipboard, lock your elbows to your side so the clipboard doesn't move!)