- Entries : Category [ Fine Arts Day Camp at Villa Montalvo ]
- My experiences at Villa Montalvo's fine arts day camp.
01 August
2006
Of Elrond's Council and Snails
Day 1 at Villa Montalvo
In the morning I arrived at day camp. I felt nervous. In fact, I commented about how it felt like it was going to the council of Elrond. That quote led to a good discussion about Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit till everyone was there. Then came the camp leader. She gave us a talk about how we are chosen. I felt a very good quote coming on:
"I feel both ecstacy and unease at being a chosen one." -Megane, Urusei Yatsura Movie 2
I didn't say it though. We were divided into 3 groups. The teachers would rotate the groups. One taught enviromental art, one taught drawing, and one taught painting. I got the one I wanted: the one who taught painting.
So we started by doing a blind contour (a drawing without looking down at the paper) of our hands. My right handed drawn one had the markings offset. My left looked more like a pile of scribbles. Then we could draw whatever we wanted on there. So I did a dragon.
Then we would begin a painting. I noted to myself that most people did designs. All except me and my friend, where she did a sea dragon and I did an orca. Hers was turning out great, and a lot of people was starting to like mine.
Then we went to lunch. Me and my group checked the newspaper tower. We all took note that the tower was leaning. Than one of them commented, "They cheated! They do a whole row with the same issue!"
After that, we played capture the flag. It kinda made me feel out of practice. I usually was able to catch up to people better. In the end, the other team won.
We went to enviromental art next. Our teacher was Wendy, and she put a great stress on her background. So we had 5 stations: first was arranging snails and flower petals, second was making designs out of bike tires, third was graffitti art, fourth was arranging objects on a mirror, and fifth, the inspiration station, which was a boring little corner of the room.
Me and my partner first went to the graffiti station. She watched this odd movie, while I read The Saddest Place On Earth (yes, it was a takeoff on Disney). That book was way too surreal for me. The people looked like they had bile coming out of their mouths. Then we had to do a design on a truck. I pointed my design to the direction of using the last gallon of oil. It was more politics than enviromental, though. I walked away from that station, feeling extremely weirded out.
Than we went to the bike tire station. I insisted on using this pretty gold tire. As I spent 10 minutes cutting the tire, I was grumping about the wire siding. So I made mine into an eye. My partner had limited time because she hadn't done the feet yet, so I suggested she add flippers instead and call it a plateosaur.
And we watched the snail station. I was laughing at the fact their was a pan of salt right next to the snails. Nothing new though.
Then we went to the "inspiration station". We drew, and labeled the birds the teacher had on the wall.
Finally, we moved on. We were to go outside to collect enviromental items for making our bird project. Basically, dead stuff. So I asked the teacher, "May I use the roots of the scotch broom plant?" Obviously, she said yes. If you ask why, scotch broom is an invasive and a rather annoying plant.
My friend had a tendancy to find bird feathers. The rest of our group were whining. All we got were a few downy feathers. In the end, I got a dead Lily of the Nile and my friend got a dead yucca fan. Irony that it was a yucca.
At the end of the day, we did a boring activity, where we tossed a ball around. My whole group were incredibly bored, so we finished it the fastest. Than we had to go.
See you tomorrow!
Posted by
rebecca at
00:06
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02 August
2006
Music Of the Elk
Drawing Today
Today started out with me finding a dead mole, signing in, and going into Elrond's Council room. Today it had a table, and my friend brought her sketch pad. We showed each other's work. I was amazed. I never had seen someone with that much of a talent! I knew I most likely if I wanted too, I could beat my school. But she completely blew them away.
I went with Mitsy today. Along the way, I talked with my friend. We both agreed that manga was better, because american comics butchered reality.
We started with drawing with the music. First, with the more depressing music, I started a tree. Slowly it turned into an elk. Then two elk. Then a squirrell that became a fox. Then a big tree. Then a dolphin. And finally, a sleeping bag, quiver of arrows and two stones. I have to say I liked that drawing.
Then we did something like in Narrangkar's class. We took magazines and ripped pages that we liked out. But we would be making collages instead. I made mine with ease. And it was fun.
Then I took a raw skateboard and painted the underside white. Universally, that's what we all did. So I cleaned up, settled down, and started the drawing of the huntress I was thinking of drawing. I thought this was one of the best of my manga drawing other than another.
We went down to lunch then. But the newspaper stack was blocked off. Apparently, they noticed the tilt. I quietly sifted my thoughts of pulling a newspaper out yesterday (which, I didn't succeed at).
We went to Narrangkar's class next. We were given a piece of paper and everything - everything but a pencil. My first drawing was a failure, where I only liked the ice wolf I drew. Then I loved the next one, which was a unicorn sleeping on the river banks while there was a fall tree and a spring tree. I titled this "Four Seasons".
We continued our paintings. I did a volcano in the background, one of my universal trademarks. Then I drew a sun in the background. I thought it might be done. So I then painted a dragon on the big mural in the classroom.
I talked with Narrangkar about what else to add to my painting. She suggested that I put blue in the background because I commented that it was at sunrise. (I was inspired from the fight scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with Theoden's speech.)
We eventually cleaned up and went to the "Grove of Generosity". We sat down and didn't want to get up. We had to do the human knot. It really sucked, so we finished faster than everyone. So we talked and sketched.
When we went to the pick-up place, my friend said ,"Hey! That guy has a transmutation circle on his sketch book!" We asked about it like rabid fangirls. Then he responded that it wasn't, and he did not know what we were talking about. Ouch.
Day two has passed!
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rebecca at
01:45
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03 August
2006
Do Clay Birds Fly?
We all have doubts
We started the day with getting our tags and moving out. Thankfully, instead of crawling up the hill, we went to the stable studio, which is further down. So we walked along, snatching a few berries from the blackberry bushes. When we arrived, we were welcome to a sight that would soon become a pile of environment.
We got our twigs, leaves, scotch broom, feathers, etc. to make the environmental birds. I first rolled a ball of clay. But it turned out that it wasn't clay that I used.
I first made a bird of paradise. Second, I made an immense hummingbird (take an ordinary hummingbird and x4), and third I made a chick. My friend took the yucca fan and made a peacock. Then comes the balance factor...
So when we had done our environmental birds, with are hands sticky with clay, we learned how to do wire birds. So I did mine and added pretty leaves. I called it Dioratama because of the immenseness of the legs.
So we walked to lunch. And it was boring as usual. Nothing new.
Then we walked to Mitsy's class. We, apparently, were going to do self portraits. I dreaded self portraits. Mainly, because I drew humans with manga format, and even then I thought I was drawing badly. As my friend started on hers, she was complaining about it. I complimented on it, because it looked so good.
I started out mine with the basic form of an oval and 3 lines for the eyes. As I did mine grumpily, all it took to cheer me up was for the teacher to say it was good. Then I started enjoying mine.
So we had to start painting our skateboards. I started painting out the dragon. I started out with the green outline of the dragon I was drawing. I eventually started the wings. By the time the period had ended, I had moved on to a purple background.
So we were picked up. We anticipate the next day.
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rebecca at
04:30
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04 August
2006
The Dragon Compells Thee
Second to Last Day At Art Camp
Today everybody went up the hill. We were all going to a class with House, our new teacher, to learn new techniques. To tell the truth, we were merely learning things useful for all sorts of things, say copying your favorite drawing.
I tried doing broken glass in the background, but it didn't turn out well. I tried making for it with white splatters, but it wasn't as good as I hoped for it to be.
So House came over, showed us a technique, and went around again. It's what we spent most of the period doing. But actually, I had spilled paint on my shirt, and spent most of my time scrubbing it and muttering curses.
During lunch, one of the teacher assistants had hid the flags. So me and my band searched for them. He had put it in the sculpture. I commented to him that it was very easy.
So I went to my last day in Narrangkar's class. We all looked at the 8'x5' mural. It had been divided up for the groups, and each was chaotic in our manner.
Now, remember the dragon I drew on the mural? Well, everybody liked it. So we improved on it. I said I would work on the dragons face because it would've been to easy to mess up the expression. Half the class wanted it angry, and the other half wanted it happy. So i made it slightly peturbed.
We divided the modifying among us. Most people were working on the waves that went around the mural. My friend was working on the flames. She and I have experience in drawing dragons, so when the class wanted flame from the nose, we were going, "Nononnono! You'll mess it up!" Well, we got our way.
Then the teacher asked if my painting was done. She suggested it to be a blue sky at sunrise, 'cause I wanted a sunrise (to much LOTR, see Music Of the Elk post). So I was working on my painting and I (finally) got to use an easel, because I've been using a chair.
However, I was drawn by the mural. My friend had dubbed me "dragon lady" because of the start of the dragon. She was always saying, "when are you coming, dragon lady?" in a sad voice. I said soon, but painting shades of blue in five seconds is not easy.
So I finished my painting. And I enjoyed how it turned out. So I worked on opening the mouth of the dragon. By the end of the period, the mural looked ten times better. It had turned from a somewhat mediocre dragon to an amazing fury of green and red. My friend and I exchanged comments on each others works. She said that she could'nt have drawn such a good western dragon. She could draw an eastern, but not a western.
I feel sad that the last day is only tomorrow.
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rebecca at
02:34
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15 August
2006
Last Day of Art Camp
Of Logs and Skateboards
Today I arrived early. At 9:35, when the start time was 9:45, there were still people there. So I got a tour of the room. Our tire sculptures and my group's paintings were hung up. So I chose a spot and sat down. I was irate with myself for not replacing my pencil lead.
So gradually the people came. Then Kirsten (the head of the camp) told us that our parents would come and walk around here. They would put up more of our artwork up, and we would lead them around at the end of the day.
So we started out with Wendy. She gave us our clay birds to put up in the trees around us. So, mine was very fragile. So when she was talking, first the wing came out. Then the body broke in half. So I grabbed a chunk of museum wax and inputted it. I then placed it on the tree, hoping that the wind wouldn't blow it off.
Wendy then told us that we were to make a big nest for our environmental birds. So we were to find bark, wood, etc. to make a huge nest. So I grabbed three 3" diameter pieces of rotten wood.
We went to the nest site were the previous group had started working on it. Wendy had already hung up our environmental birds. So we went down a trail to find more pieces. We toyed with the idea of rolling 4' diameter logs over.
After that, someone decided to make a sign saying "The wicked bird of the west". It was a little oddball, but okay. Then we worked on our artist statements about it. Then we went to lunch.
Today Patrick (one of the assistants) decided to the flags behind a wall. I poked him saying ,"That was too easy!"
However, the red flag broke. On one of our "cheese" collisions, it broke.
Then we went to finish our skateboards in Mitsy's class. Due to my previous expedition that took 30 minutes of scrubbing my shirt, my grip tape on my skateboard wasn't done and I was wearing my camp shirt.
So House was teaching us a technique with doing a water acrylic layer on a drawing, cutting it out on paper, and putting it on blueprint paper. It took a while for mine to set, so I tried catching up on the skateboard.
I was reminded of my brother and the star trek episode "Redemption". So I did a Klingon symbol. Thanks to Mitsy, I was able to get it done faster. Though I wanted to paint it red inside, I didn't have the time. So I decided I was going to finish the blueprint thing at home.
We all went down to the "council room". Our relatives had arrived. So we showed them all our work. So we put our wheels on the skateboards and left.
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rebecca at
19:39
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