Art to celebrate the 4th of July

Dana Gilpin is a well known artist in Tulsa.  Her work is featured in several galleries around town and she is known for teaching wonderful art classes for children.

Every summer she hosts several 2 week long summer camps for kids, but our schedule never matched up with any of the camps she offered.  Luckily, she was offering a one day (3 hour) camp celebrating the 4th of July.  I thought William would enjoy the art class and I was eager to try out Dana's popular kid friendly art camps.

(it's much more glittery and shiny in person)

I signed William up for the "Patriotic 4th" art project and on Sunday afternoon I dropped him off to craft and create!  On the way to Dana's house, William was a little nervous.  He told me he wasn't sure how to make stars on a flag and he was curious who would be there.  I told him how much my friends' kids have enjoyed the art classes and assured him that his imagination was the perfect way to draw stars.  There is simply no right answer when you get to create your very own piece of art.  He agreed and told me, "yeah mom. it's like when I play with friends.  Everyone has a different imagination and plays with toys differently.  So I can paint different than everyone else because I have a different imagination."  Indeed buddy! 

Dana's house is VERY artsy and her studio is the entire backside of her house.  The colors are super bright, the decor is whimiscal and William was at ease right when we walked through the door.  There were 10 kids in the class, 3 were boys. 

When I picked William up, he proudly showed me his Patriotic Blue Dog.  He did the entire project himself except for the hot glue gun and cutting out the dog (he said the paper was really tough to cut).  I LOVE it and even more perfect was how proud William was of his final project.  He was beaming when I picked him up!

Adeline was so funny when she saw the artwork.  She never took her eyes off of it.  The first thing she said was, "WWWWWOOOOWWW!"  Then she barked like a dog for a long time and clapped her hands.  She repeatedly pointed to the picture and said, "CCCCCCUUUUUUUTTTEEE!"  I think she was very pleased with the final product!

A couple things William reported from the camp:

• He'd love to go back for another holiday art class
• Dana has 3 dogs, 1 cat and 2 birds.  The birds flew around in a cage while the kids created their art
• He ate a cupcake for a snack
• The kids were ages 5-9 years old
• He really liked using the glitter paint and picking out all the colors himself
• They spent the first few steps making a "blue print" which was a drawing of how they wanted their picture to turn out
• He picked a dog, but you could also have a panda bear, pig or cat