Perks of summer ...

One of my favorite perks of summer is getting to visit Poetry Hill Poetry's Summer Writing Program and leading these lovely kids in an art project.  These visits are particularly enjoyable as these kids are wonderfully creative and take my art activities and create pieces beyond my imagination.  I am always awed by their ideas and finished pieces.

picture created using thumb and fingerprints
 (and pen) note how the flowers
feel like they are flying!

This past week we created graphic novel pages/comics using thumbprint art.  Thumbprint art is basically using an ink pad and either your thumb or fingers to make a print which you can then make into ANYTHING by adding lines.  You can also use your prints in a group to create larger shapes and images.  You can see by the finished pieces below that these kids did both.  

I started the session by demonstrating some possibilities and then handing out ink pads and scratch paper to let them play and get a feel for the process.  While they were experimenting I asked them to think about a story for one of their thumbprint characters.  After a bit, I handed out a page with empty 'storyboard's and ask them to create a story using thumbprint art.  The stellar finished pieces are below, many with lovely narratives.  And just in case you too want to play, here is the link to the printable template.  

True confession: thumbprint art is HIGHLY addictive, as you will see by the piece I made for my 'dailydress' blog. 

the adventures of Joey!! climbing, hanging, jumping and more.

the story of a person looking for a place where
they are accepted. 

Lastly, Potato Hill Poetry's Summer Writing Program has one more inspiring week left and if you are local and have a budding creative in your house, I highly recommend that you click here and check it out!! http://www.potatohill.com/summer-writing-program/

a peacock beauty pageant, click to expand and read the captions,
the outcome is priceless. 

story of a mole who gets sick and is helped by other animals
and they all end up living together.

'love birds':  the wedding, making a home, having babies ...

based on the games, apples to apples

a picture of the beach by her house in maine

'how I feel about houses' ... the sun shows its opinions about
different styles of home.

made by Andy Green, award-winning poet and writer, and leader of this program.
He continued playing and experimenting and check out the last panel,
totally thinking outside the box with his bunny ears!!  

as the kids were diligently working away I continued playing on the board,
first creating a Ferris wheel, then putting all types
of characters in the buckets of the Ferris wheel and then a
created the crowd waiting for their turn!
TOTALLY ADDICTING!!

And in response to a conversation about 'weirdness' that we had as we worked on our pieces, I created the illustration below, using my thumb and fingerprints.

illustration for my 'dailydress' blog -EMBRACE YOUR WEIRD!

and as always ...

Follow your Art and Peace