Fine Arts Camp Ottawa

Our Art Camp program is designed to treat drawing, painting and collage as skills to be mastered. I hope you will find the art program at 5 Star Camps stimulating and enjoyable but also remember that art is about creation, and creation is primarily a personal adventure. Van Gogh & Vermeer are two artists with two distinct styles. Whether they think they can draw or not, the campers in our art program will have their own drawing style too.  I like to personally encourage each camper to be comfortable with their own creative style, and I will show them what they may do to improve their skills.

In this art program I shall show campers how to get the proportions right in figure drawing, the correct procedure to create good perspective and in art history we will be looking at impossible perspective in the work of M.C. Escher, a brilliant artist and mathematician. The campers will gain experience in handling oils as well as acrylic and watercolours, they will study the effects of light and shade on still life, and compare the merits of charcoal and pencils.  By the end of the course each camper will know the difference between formal abstract art as portrayed in the work of Mondrian, and abstract expressionism as seen in the work of Jackson Pollock and Marc Rothko.

Each week is designed to lead campers, through exercises and activities that will sharpen up their drawing and painting skills, towards a finished piece of work.  In this art program we shall produce a small portfolio to be proud of.  If this all sounds a bit too serious, don’t worry. I have ways to make art fun, interesting and exciting.

The campers shall be designing, imagining and creating, in an atmosphere designed to be comfortable and inspiring. Each day's work will be accompanied by classical music, and stories about the lives of the artists we study.

Campers will be encouraged to be all they can be; they will hear the words “you never know what you can achieve until you try" throughout the course and with the right guidance and individual attention they will be surprised by their achievements.

The Fine Arts Camp Program

Week one   Mostly dry media.

Day 1.   Strange still life, compare pencil to charcoal.
Still life doesn’t have to be fruit & wine bottles! What about a group of tools you’d use to change a car tire?  Cosmetics spilling out of a bag?  The remnants of your birthday party? Let’s get imaginative. When using different techniques we can create light and shade, making ordinary objects look like works of art.

Day 2.   Sketch outside, compare charcoal and chalks.

Day 3.  Perspective in landscape using oil pastels.
The rule for perspective is “The further away an object is, the smaller it appears", but did you know that it also loses its sharp colours and gets greyer? The campers will learn an ancient Chinese technique to show distance in their art work.

Day 4.  Landscape in watercolours.
In this lesson the students will practice four different watercolour techniques in one landscape painting.

Day 5.  Perspective and M.C. Escher staircases, any dry medium.
M. C. Escher was a brilliant artist and mathematician who delighted in fooling the eye and brain with pictures of absolutely, mind-boggling impossible perspective. Practice one of his techniques.

Week two  Wet media techniques.

Day 1.  Figure drawing, light and shade, using coloured pencils.
Learn the Eight Point Scale for correctly drawing the human form.

Day 2.  Formal abstract (Mondrian, Kandinsky) in acrylics.
The term ‘Abstract’ means having no reference to objects like a cat, a tree or an orange. Delve into your imagination and create a very controlled and meaningful work of art.

Day 3.  Abstract Expressionism (Pollock, Rothko) in acrylics.
The Abstract Expressionist movement began in New York City in the 1940’s. The term ‘Expressionism’ means the artist has tried to express what he feels or thinks, in his painting. The works of art created today will be very large and very free in order that artists can express their emotions fully.

Day 4.  Conventional still life in oils.
Painting in oils is time consuming and involves several stages; learn the basic techniques.

Day 5.  Finish  oils, plus fun with real and impossible perspective.
Some campers who work slowly or have complex paintings will need the full two days to complete their work of art; others will have time to complete an extra piece of art. A very popular choice in the past has been the impossible perspective of M. C. Escher.

Week three  Inks, printing & collage.

Day 1. Marbling.  Fruit and vegetable prints.  Ink in details on dry marble prints.
Practice two different techniques of creating lovely marble patterns, like those seen on the inside covers of very old books.

Day 2.  Cross-hatching techniques.
Experiment with different ink pens to create the effects of light and shade without using conventional ‘shading’.

Day 3.  Mosaic panel using foam.
Roman mosaic floors are our inspiration here, but instead of using ceramic tiles we shall use sheets of thin, coloured foam to recreate beautiful pictures from Roman myths and legends.

Day 4.  Themed collage using magazine cuttings, then inked in.
This can be a large ‘statement’ piece using current events to make a bold impact.

Day 5.  Mixed media painting, (watercolour + ink, or collage + acrylics).
Each camper will probably have discovered a preference for one particular technique or medium. They are given the chance here to work again with the medium of their choice.

Our Fine Arts Teacher

My qualifications and experience are in residential social work in the United Kingdom, working with spirited and challenging children and teens, as well as adults with special needs. I have used my love of art throughout my career to reach out to, and enrich the lives of the different client groups I have worked with. My skills include the ability to help people feel at ease quite quickly, and I like to encourage those with little confidence to try and have a go, no matter what we are doing.  I enjoy the company of youngsters and can tell a good yarn to captivate my audience. You will find in me, a compassionate person with a great deal of common sense.

Some of you may recognise me from the Art Studies course I ran in Stittsville for 10 years. This started in my own home with 5 students in 1998. By 2002 I had 25 students and I had to rent larger premises and employ another tutor.

I am presently employed at Venta Preparatory school as art teacher in the Junior School. I have enjoyed working with this superb team for over 5 years, and my own daughter attends this school.

I love to design and build large stained glass panels. I studied stained glass at a 600 year old establishment in a small town called Monkwearmouth in the north of England, and you can see my panels in a restaurant in Whitley Bay, St. Thomas Church, Stittsville, and several homes around the region.

I live near Kinburn in the middle of nowhere, with my husband, two children and various pets.  I love being outdoors in summer or winter, swimming or snowshoeing, it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is spending time with family and friends doing things together.

I look forward to this new challenge at 5-Star Camps. I really enjoy seeing skills develop and imaginations flow from the new campers I will meet this summer.

See you then!
Mrs. Gillian Mattock.

Typical Day For a 11-12 Year Old ( Fine Arts Camp Only)