art camp

Mary went to art camp at a local school this week.  She loved it!  The teacher was great.  It was called "Art for Little Ones" and the kids were 5-6, pre-k to 1st graders.  Mary is becoming quite the artist!  Here is some of her art and explanations of how she created them.

Mary uses a glove with a hole in it.  In the hole, we place a paintbrush and she uses it.  Mary's fingers do not bend enough to hold onto anything.

Mary is left-handed and very determined to do things by herself when she can.  She is very good at drawing lines and making dots with markers, pencils, and paints.  Mary has only been using the glove technique for 10 months.

The teacher gave the students the direction to paint lines on the paper one day and the next day to fill in the in-betweens with 3 colors.  Mary needed some guidance to stay in the lines, but
the rest is all her work!


Mary chose her colors by using her Dynavox.  Mary's current favorite color is yellow.  Some of her previous favorite colors have been purple, brown and red.  Mary currently wants to be a teacher when she grows up.  For a long time, she wanted to be a horseback-rider vet.

The kids were told to draw an animal and Mary used her Dynavox to choose pig.  They used all sorts of paint and print techniques to make paper designs and cut the shapes for their animals.

Mary made the decision to draw a pig by saying so via her Dynavox.  She then told a helper to draw the various body parts of the pig via the Dynavox.  After painting the papers, she told the helper which paper was for which body part - via her Dynavox.

After reading monster books, the kids were told to draw monsters and color them in.

Helping Mary draw this monster was so cool!  She loved the books and really got into the drawing!  She used her Dynavox to tell me how she wanted her monster to be.  First, she told me that she wanted the monster to have a big head.  I helped her draw a big head.  Then she told me the body would be little.  Then she said that she would draw the mouth, so she did.  Then she said she would draw the mouth.... again?  I was confused, but it was her monster, so anything goes, I guess.  And then I figured out what she was doing!  She was making a two-faced monster.  So she continued to tell me the face parts and doubled up on them.  And then she chose the colors and I helped her fill in the colors.  I admit that I did the eyeballs for her.

Sometimes Mary gets carried away and paints herself.

What true artist wouldn't get paint all over herself anyway?  :)

BTW - I will post again about our big trip.  I have had a lot on my mind.  I'll try to get to it soon.