Friday, March 29, 2024

VIDEO: Camp Monet educates young artists on MSU's campus

Googly eyes, painting with flowers, and yarn art are just some of the activities at Camp Monet, an art camp put on by the MSU Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden.

“Camp Monet is a three-day garden art camp, and we try to use the gardens as our inspiration for our art,” Jessica Wright, who is the garden’s education coordinator, said.

Wright describes the camp as a combination of art and nature, two things she hopes her 25 students love.

Nine-year-old Addie Huberts said she likes the camp and is having fun with the activities. 10-year-old Summer Lowe agrees.

“I just really like this camp, I’ve done it a few times before,” Lowe said.

Wright said each day the camp picks a different medium of art to focus on, along with an artist that exemplifies that medium. Over the course of this camp they will focus on drawing, painting, and paper.

“I just like it [art] cause it includes lots of fun stuff, like drawing different animals,” Huberts said.

“It’s just really fun and I like expressing myself,” Lowe said.

Aside from the camp, the girls said they also enjoy being artistic in their homes and at school.

“I think it’s a way to have kids approach those important subjects, so science, mathematics, all those things … this can be a channel for that,” Wright said, adding creativity is important in the STEM disciplines as well.

Huberts, who is home-schooled, said she does all kinds of art at home, including drawing, painting, and sketching.

“I wanted to come to camp because it was about art and about a famous artist,” Huberts said.

Lowe said at school her art classes have painted for Wharton Center productions.

Wright said the camp tries to integrate information about plants and nature, as well as observation skills.

“All those skills kind of come together in the camp and also with art, so it’s just a way to kind of mirror what they’re already doing and learning but in a creative way,” Wright said.

Wright said many students come back to the art camp for multiple years and she views summer as a good time for kids to develop skills and learn lessons outside the classroom.

We want to be having fun and being creative, now is the time where we’re not is school, so we can be kind of fostering some of those ideas in the summer, but still just having a really good time doing it,” Wright said.

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