Virtual Summer Art Workshops (K-2nd grade)

Though we cannot meet in person this summer, we want to keep your kids in the art loop! We have taken everything we learned about virtual art classes this spring, incorporated input from our families, and come up with a fun, social art experience to keep your young artist connected to the studio and their art practice!

Each week of VIRTUAL Summer Art Workshop includes:

• One ART KIT, including a t-shirt, sketchbook, and all the materials you need for a week's worth of art making. Delivered to your door, in or out of Brooklyn!
• One 90 minute group art class each morning (recorded for later viewing, if necessary)
• 1-2 one-on-one sessions for your child with their teaching artist, scheduled at your convenience
• Special pre-recorded demos by your child's teaching artist that you can access anytime
• Additional online resources and ideas for continuing and related projects outside of class

Classes will be hosted on Google Classroom, where artists can chat and share with each other whenever they like. Interactive sessions will take place on Zoom. Contact us if you would like login info for our sample Google Classroom!

SAMPLE Online Group Class flow

• 9:30-9:40am: Log on and ice-breaker
• 9:40am-9:50am: Art looking
• 9:50am-10:00am: Project demo
• 10:00am-10:30am: Guided art-making
• 10:30am-10:45am: Sharing and reflection
• 10:45-11am: Keep working/social time

Register by the Wednesday before each week of SAW to ensure receipt of your Art Kit before classes begin!

Courses are subject to minimum enrollment; if enrollment requirements are not met by the Wednesday before the first class, the session will be canceled. You will have the option to have the fee fully refunded, or applied toward a later session.

Weekly Topics

Week 1: June 29-July 3  Puppets & Performers  CANCELLED

Why so serious? Art can be funny, too! Artists often uses the body, humor and play as a foundation for inspiration, and this week, we will be sharing jokes and making art that makes us laugh as we explore how humor is connected to art making. We will be inspired by artists like Nick Cave and Jim Henson, and will craft puppets and costumes that we will use for our own hysterical art performances.

Week 2: July 6-10  Nature, Science, Art  Harriet Tebbetts

Artists and scientists are both experimenters and explorers. This week, we will investigate and collaborate with nature to create our art; from observing our environment and drawing, to building sculptures of natural materials, to paintings made with plant pigments we mine ourselves. We will also spend time creating artistic experiments, and explore the work of artists like Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Goldsworthy, Tom Shannon, and David Weiss.

​Week 3: July 13-17  Design & Build  Sharela Bonfield

This week, we will combine found objects, recyclable materials, and wood, rope, boxes and paint to invent technology for the future. We will learn how artists use just the right tools to connect, cut, combine and create as we examine the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea Zittel, and Michael Salter. Ultimately, we will explore simple machines like levers, pulleys, and ramps to build a giant collaborative invention that just might change the world!

​Week 4: July 20-24  Stories & Characters  Harriet Tebbetts

How do artists create characters for movies like "Star Wars", or animated films like "Inside Out"? It all begins with sketching, painting, and a whole lot of imagination! This week, young artists will invent original characters based upon animals, people, and fantastic creatures! We'll look at artists like Carmen Lomas Garza, Jacob Lawrence, and Wangechi Mutu. After building our own comic books, we will even experiment with making a collaborative animated film. Perhaps an Academy Award is in the not-too-distant future!

Week 5: July 27-31  Prints & Impressions  Reuben Lorch-Miller

Artists copy the world around them in many ways, and this week we will explore some of the more direct ones. We will discuss the work of Katie Herzog, Max Ernst, and Cai Guo-Qiang as we create rubbings and stamp multiples with printing plates, found objects, and our bodies! Artists will also learn simple mold making and casting techniques to make plaster creations that reflect their own visions.

Week 6: Aug 3-7  Art That Moves  Iviva Olenick

Artists move materials to make their art, and sometimes the art continues to move without them! This week, we will experiment with how different movements result in different looking art (à la Jackson Pollock), and create kinetic sculptures and mobiles with moveable parts inspired by artists like Tim Hawkinson and Alexander Calder.

Week 7: Aug 10-14  Textures & Textiles  Paul DeMuro

This week, artists explore the magic of fiber arts and their cuddly creations! We will be inspired by textile traditions from around the globe, including felting, weaving, embroidery and batik, to create art that feels as lovely as it looks as we look at work by artists like Anni Albers, Judith Scott, and Faith Ringgold. Young artists will also investigate contemporary artists, such as Mike Kelley, to create colorful, cozy, crazy art that relaxes and comforts, through process and product!

Week 8: Aug 17-21  Big & Public  Erin Dunn

This week, little artists go BIG by experimenting with art that lives out among us. We will find out what kind of planning it takes to create a large scale work of art, and make art that lives outside and is meant to be touched by everyone. We will also explore street art in the neighborhood, look at work by Keith Haring, Agnes Denes, and Claes Oldenburg for inspiration, and create public art for the outside of the studio!

Week 9: Aug 24-28  Places & Spaces  Cheryl Paswater

What are our favorite places in the neighborhood? What spaces can we make ourselves, with materials familiar, new, and discovered along the way? This week, we will investigate artists inspired by specific and imagined places, like Francis Alÿs and Bodys Isek Kingelez, and artists who make space the subject of their work, like James Turrell. And what program about spaces would be complete without some good old fashioned fort building?

Week 10: Aug 31-Sept 4  Unusual Art Materials  Ashley Chapman

Artists don't need anything fancy to unleash their creativity! This week we will get weird as we explore all of the unusual ways artists express themselves, finding inspiration in the world around us. We will experiment with using traditional art supplies in new ways, and will revel in the unexpected opportunities provided by found, foraged, and repurposed materials too! We will learn about the work of both traditional and self-taught artists like Vik Muniz, Sarah Sze, Mr. Imagination, and Joe Minter as we go!