Christmas magic stayed in Estevan even after the holidays as snow turned into paper and water into paint for kids, who attended the Winter Wonderland. A winter camp organized by the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum (EAGM) kept children occupied over the winter break.
This year was the second for the project. Karly Garnier, education, outreach, and programming co-ordinator for the EAGM explained how it worked.
“It’s a three-day camp, it’s full days, 9 to 4.30. Theme is Winter Wonderland, so it’s all a variety of winter art projects. All different mediums, I like to have the kids to try as many different materials as they can. A little bit of fine art, a little bit of craft as well,” Garnier said.
Over these three days kids ages six to 12 got to try various fine art techniques like acrylic pallet knife painting, textured watercolour experimenting with salt and colour and many others.
Not only children learned how to do art they also learned about various materials they were using. Garnier noted that it is important for her to offer her pupils a variety of options for creativity.
“I like to give them access to fine art materials and a little bit baseline instructions on how to use them that they wouldn’t probably have access to at school or at home,” Garnier said.
To make the art experience even richer children turned the surrounding world into their studio. They used snow as a canvas and coloured water as their paint. After a couple of extremely cold New Year days, the weather began co-operating, and the kids called this outdoor activity the best.
Despite having a smaller group Garnier was happy with this year’s turnout.
“It’s been good. We are happy with the turnout. It’s just our second year doing it, so it isn’t super well-known like our summer art camps. But we are happy even if it’s a smaller group. We are just happy to offer something when kids are off school,” Garnier said.
The EAGM is planning on offering one-day camps during the February break. And of course, there will be full-scale well-known art gallery summer camps, which will take place in July and August. Besides, Garnier mentioned that they also might try to organize art camps for younger kids.
“I’m thinking potentially in the summer I might try to do a couple half-day camps for younger kids for maybe four to six,” Garnier said.
There is also a family art program for parents and toddlers running on Thursday mornings most of the year.
Photos by Anastasiia Bykhovskaia
