Magic, creativity and fun are flowing through the studio!
This summer flew by so quickly!
The students, our guest teacher and I all had a blast with the creative camps!
Students at our Magical Creatures Camps dreamed of magical creatures all week long and built homes for their special creatures. I was so happy to see the creativity that building a home/environment for their creature inspired. Everyone had their favorite creatures before camp but found new ones to love by the end of camp. Stories were written about their creatures’ homes and underwater volcanoes were built, as were molten lava cores. Little caves were created, so that their Magical Creatures had a place to rest, as were cool trap doors and magical slides! We sewed, painted, wrote, sculpted and drew magical creatures all week! It was so great to see how the students inspired each other too – that’s when you know that creativity is flowing like magic all around.
Creating homes for our dragons from recycled materials.
Fascinated by stories of fantastical beasts!
At our Magical Treasures Creative Camps, we learned about heroes and bravery, about treasures precious, magical and intangible. We made our own chalices inspired by King Arthur and the Holy Grail, created our own Zuni Fetishes inspired by the sacred relationship between Nature and the American Indians. We made our magical wands that could “rainbow anything” or create flowers and built our very own story chests to inspire us to keep telling and creating great stories.
Story chests as creative and individual as the young artists who painted them.
Taking turns to tell stories with our Story Chests.
We loved the stories that grew from creating our own magical trees, from a tree where stars went to rest when they were tired of shining in our night skies to a tree where time went when it was bored to a lovely tree filled with vanilla gumdrops of snow. Everyone loved creating their own little Zuni animal totems that represented a trait they wanted – like being gentle, or brave or strong.
Young artists at work on their mixed media tree paintings.
Paintings drying, waiting for the next steps….
All in all, it made for a wonderful summer of creativity and art and I loved the pride on each young artist’s face when they got to showcase their works in a final exhibition!
Last day of camp! Exhibition day! Time to showcase what we’ve been working on all week!
Getting ready to present to friends and family
More pictures will be added of students’ work coming up soon. 🙂
Creative Camp updates and join our next Magical Creatures Camp for free with the Orange Cat’s contest!!
Summer Creative Camps are off to a great start! Camp participants are having a great time dreaming up stories about Magical Creatures and creating them!
Here are some pictures from camp so far. To sign up for camp, go here.
Or try your luck and win a free week of Magical Creatures Camp with the promotion we are doing with The Orange Cat, an awesome family newsletter about activities and events around the San Gabriel Valley area. Just sign up for their newsletter and you will be entered into a draw automatically. The wonderful folks at The Orange Cat are great believers in art being wonderful for kids and are generously sponsoring one child for a whole, wonderful magical week of camp! Thank you Orange Cat!! To read more about it and to sign up, go here.
You can also get a special 10% off Creative Summer Camp if you use the code ORANGECAT on this website when you check out.
Journal entries
Dragon days
\ Pinch pot creatures from the imagination
Watercolors are awesome for rendering creatures!
Sharing stories
Solo Exhibition: Dreaming Trees – A Retrospective
From September till the end of October, the wonderful Hastings Branch Library in Pasadena, CA. will be hosting a 10 year retrospective on my paintings of trees. I’ll be unveiling the latest painting as well. I’m calling it “The Story Tree” because the seed of its birth begun in this very library when we were all enthralled by the wonderful stories told to us by the amazing Laura Simms. Here’s the write-up from the exhibition materials:
About the exhibition:
“My affinity with trees began in childhood. I would notice trees wherever I go, finding deep peace and happiness in their presence. It seems only natural that when I started painting, my art would be filled with Trees.
Trees often take center stage in my work, a symbol of strength and perseverance, rooted deeply into this Earth yet with arms reaching up high to dreams, hopes and inspiration. Sometimes, they form a background to the stories I have to tell – of love, intentions and the journeys we take through life.
This collection of paintings is a celebration of my favorite muse in Nature – the trees I see everyday.”
~ Sherry Giang
Trees are one of my favorite things to paint, and I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by gorgeous trees around my Pasadena studio. If you love trees like me, make sure to visit Eaton Canyon, the Los Angeles Aboreteum, Huntington Gardens and Descanso Gardens in the area.
I’ll also be doing two fun workshops at the library on my kind of tree paintings! Please join me to create your very own tree painting! RSVP is required for the adult workshop. Please call the library at (626) 744-7262 to RSVP.
Venue: Hastings Branch Library, 3325 E Orange Grove Blvd, Pasadena CA 91107 Cost: Free
More information about the workshops:
Adult Workshop: Create Your Dreaming Tree
Explore your artistic side and create your very own Dreaming Tree painting in this art workshop inspired by the artist’s Dreaming Trees series. Sept 20th, 2014, 2:00 – 3:00 pm
Kids Workshop: Fingerpaint Trees
Using just your fingers, learn to create layers of color and textures for your tree. Oct 16th, 2014, 4:00 – 4:45 pm