Teen Art Camp Blends Fun And Education
An art camp for teens is held at Standish Sterling Central High School.
July 29, 2008
By: Jeni Joan
Sarah Nagy, the teacher, works on her own charcoal drawing.
Students work carefully on their paper mache robots.
For this one week in July, an art camp for young adults between the ages of 14 to 17 is being held at Standish Sterling Central High School. The art camp began on Monday, July 28th and ends on Friday, August 1st. To attend the camp, teenagers must pre-register, and pay a fee. This year there are only 10 students in attendance. But from 9 in the morning until noon, these students are there, ready to learn and create their own pieces of art. Sponsored by the Northeast Michigan Arts Council (NMAC), this art camp is blending fun with education.
One of the most promising aspects of this art camp is that it is instilling an appreciation of the arts. Sarah Nagy, the youthful teacher and an interior design major at Kendall College of Art and Design, admitted to being a strong fan of art camps. "I've always had a lot of fun doing it. I've been going since I was 8 years old, and when I was too old to do that, I became an assistant teacher and then a teacher for these art camps."
Each day, the students get to learn about and practice different styles of art. For instance, on Monday, they learned about surrealism and got to create their own pieces of surrealistic art. On Tuesday, they got to work with paper mache, which involves paper, a special paste made from flour and water, and an object to stick the paper to. What makes paper mache an especially fun art project is that you can make almost anything from it, whether it is a robot or a miniature dinosaur. Today they were making robots. The rest of the week will be a continuing mix of fun and education for the students, as they work with charcoal drawings, watercolors, and acrylic paint.
A student cautiously paints her robot
(MyBayCity Photo by Jeni Joan)
