Children turn mistakes into masterpieces at art camp

The Margaret Harwell Art Museum in Poplar Bluff recently hosted its annual children’s art camp, where youngsters ages 6 to 13 learned a variety of techniques to create their own masterpieces.

“We have art camp every year, and we have anywhere from 10 to 30 kids involved,” said Steve Whitworth, director of the Margaret Harwell Art Museum.

“It’s just a wonderful experience to get them acquainted with the arts and appreciate the process,” he added.

Audrey Cato works on a string art project outside the Margaret Harwell Art Museum.DAR/Paul Davis

As the class teacher, Tara Brown used her vast background in art to inspire the children.

“I’m learning lots of good things, like shrinky things and fun things,” said 6-year-old Kyra Rommel, who wants to be an artist when she grows up.

Audrey Cato, 11, has been to the camp for the last three or four summers and enjoys it.

Isaac Cato uses a variety of colors on his watercolor painting project during the youth art camp.DAR/Paul Davis

“I keep coming back because it’s fun, and I get to learn new things. It’s something fun to do,” she said.

Brown said the children learned a large variety of techniques during the one-week class.

“The kids have done all kinds of things from pottery on the potter’s wheel to paper mache. They’ve learned how to paint trees and not just painting with the paint brush to where they’re filling in color, but to use the paint brush and pounce and use different techniques to create the different things we want to achieve,” Brown said.

Etta Kate Parks paints a scene using watercolors during the youth art camp.DAR/Paul Davis

Brown called the group of students “fabulous,” and said, “they’re definitely learning the basic art techniques, like proportion, detail and shading.”

Many of the students had never been to the camp before, and some had very little art instruction in school prior to attending.

“At this age,” Brown said, “they just have art one hour a week at school.”

With several hours of instruction each day of the class, Brown said, “it’s almost like five weeks of art (at school). They really remember this stuff, and I get to build on it.”

Brown noted the children “started out the week really not knowing anything. Some of them hadn’t touched clay before and hadn’t used a potter’s wheel.

“We’ve built on their skills throughout the week, and they’ll all have two pieces of pottery that they will take home with them.”

In addition, she said, each participant took home two of their self-created paintings.

A favorite project, Brown said, was the creation of shrinky-dinks.

“They loved shrinky-dinks, which is recycle art,” Brown said. “The plastic you get nachos in - we cut those and draw with permanent marker on them. They take hole punchers, so they can make a keychain, and then put it in the oven on 350 degrees for one minute, and it takes that plastic, and it shrinks it, so it’s strong and thick.

“It’s something they can keep that was going to be trash before.”

The class, Brown said, was “really busy with a lot of smiles, laughs and mistakes that were turned into masterpieces.”

The art museum, she said, has additional art classes year-round.

“We have kid’s art classes once a month on Saturday mornings, and then we have every Wednesday at 11. The museum keeps going all year long,” Brown said.