This past weekend, a few friends and I met up at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center in historic downtown Decatur, AL for their first ever Adult Art Camp for three days of art fun. This was my first art camp ever—since I didn’t have the opportunity (or money) as a kid to attend this type of camp. The only camp I ever attended was church camp and it wasn’t exactly what I would consider “fun” in the traditional sense. (I would probably enjoy church camp now more than I did back then).
Friday, 5:30-8:00pm: We started our first evening with a general run down of what our schedule would be for the next few days. Then we enjoyed a bbq chicken potato and salad bar so we could power up for our first activity: paper making. Since our paper would have to dry overnight, it would need to be our first session. I’ve always wanted to make paper (or recycled paper, to be exact), so I was excited about this particular activity. It was a challenge in the beginning and very physically demanding—I was on my feet, bending and stooping, for a good two hours, but at the end of the night, I was excited to see how my paper would turn out the next day. I dreamt of papermaking that night when I finally drifted off.
Saturday, 9:00-5pm: Our second day began with us checking our paper. I peeled mine off the fabric they were adhered to and then took them over to the ironing station so I could get them as flat as possible for our next activity: book binding. (We did prep our aprons for eco-dying inbetween, but more about that later). After prepping our paper with holes for binding, we got a crash course in how to stitch the pages to our book covers (recycled Reader’s Digest books). It was a bit tedious, but after working through the trial and error phase, most of us had some semblance of a bound book (minus spine) to show.
After finishing with our books, we moved on to stamp making so we could block print a tote bag. This is an activity I’ve done on a few occasions, so I didn’t feel quite so lost as we designed and carved our stamps. My finished stamp did have an area that was damaged (and ink would pick up on it), so I cut mine into two stamps to try to fix it.
At the end of the day, we pulled our eco-dyed aprons from the steam vat they had been steaming in all day, but discovered that the botanicals hadn’t dyed the fabric as it should have. So, those of us who had some extra time (on Sunday) ended up using paint markers on our aprons to make them look a little better.
Sunday, 1:00-5pm: On our last day of art camp, we learned how to gelli plate print. First we used flowers and leaves to practice before choosing a photo to do an image transfer design. I chose a photo I had take of the Somerville Courthouse (the oldest courthouse in Alabama that resides in the town where I work). This was the most difficult art form to learn for me—as it requires some skill with paint. I have messed around with acrylic painting several times throughout the years, but it’s definitely not my strong suit, and alas, probably never will be. I definitely enjoyed the botanical prints over the courthouse ones.
All in all, it was a really fun weekend (even though it was literally flooding with rain throughout the weekend) and I’m glad that I signed up to participate.
I was also invited to teach a beginner frame loom weaving class at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center on November 9th, so now I have that to look forward to as well.