Our summer campers truly impressed us this week with a wide variety of art skills! We were blown away by all the beautiful and creative pieces they created throughout the week.
Monday’s topic was 2D art. We started by making art/nature journals to use throughout the week. Then, we drew self portraits in them!
Next, we went outside and got creative with finding materials in nature to spell out some fun words and took photographs of them. Can you spy the word “SPREE” in this photo?
After that we used paint, plaster, and water to make our own DIY chalk! It was cool to be able to make our own art supplies and then make art with them!
We wrapped up our day by starting some group art projects that would be presented to the group on Thursday. We made our teams, talked about our art plans, and made lists of materials we would need.
On Tuesday we were super excited to welcome some special guests from Denver Parks & Recreation to lead us in making some art inspired by nature! We had two educators come who took us through the park and identified some plants. We collected leaves, sticks, flowers, and more from safe and invasive plants that we then brought inside to make art out of. We made mandalas, critters, and nature scenes all out of natural materials! Then, we wrote nature poems about our art pieces.
Next, we learned about animal tracks and how prints are made. We even got to make our own track molds and plaster tracks with clay and plaster!
And, of course we saved time in the day to get into the river and catch critters and crawdads! We drew pictures of what we caught in the river in our nature journals.
Wednesday was all about trees! We made art out of parts of trees, and art about trees on paper!
First, we collected sticks and made 3D letters out of sticks wrapped in yarn. Then, we made pictures of trees by painting our hands and printing them as the branches of the trees and painting on trunks and branches. Next, painted beautiful designs on “tree cookies,” little slices of tree trunks to make necklaces or key chains out of them.
We wrapped up this hot day with a water party and got out the hose, sprinkler, and some sponges to cool off!
The theme on Thursday was written and performance art. We started by making collages out of the nature-word photographs we took earlier in the week.
Then, we got to delve into writing plays, making puppets, and showing off our work with puppet shows! When we went to critter crawl in the river today, we heard and wrote poems about rivers and crawdads! We definitely had some natural poets in our crew!
We wrapped up the day with our “art show.” Campers got to come up and present all of the projects they had been working on throughout the week! We saw beautiful drawings, admired 3D dioramas, heard music made from homemade instruments, and saw inspiring plays!
Even field day on Friday was art-themed! We walked to nearby Vanderbilt park, which has lots of shade and a lovely pond to get inspired by. The campers played sneaky statues, did some nature meditation, added drawings to their nature journals, and admired cool birds and bugs!
After we walked back to HQ, we wrapped up our week with critter crawl and a graduation celebration. Every camper got to be in the spotlight when we highlighted all the great things they made and that we did together this week!
River Ranger Internship 2024-2025