April Vacation Workshops

This year we tried something new. Instead of holding a theatre production week over April vacation, we decided to offer a series of visual arts workshops to keep kids thinking creatively.
Tuesday Morning: Drawing From Scratch

Students practicing observational drawing and enjoying the beautiful day.

Students made a small sketch book and made several sketches of things on the ground, at eye level and overhead.

Working hard.

Describing observations to train the eyes and hone focus.

Sketching is essential for improving drawing skills. Like playing sports or a musical instrument, drawing requires practice. Your eyes, hands and brain need to be trained to observe, process and translate 3D images to 2D. Drawing is definitely a fantastic workout for your brain!

Gesture sketching of an object. Notice her pencil doesn't leave the paper and her eyes remain focused on the object.

Tuesday Afternoon: Enter the World of Sculpey

Learning to sculpt food from Sculpey clay.

Learning to use different tools for molding clay.

Sculpey pens

Sculpting a slice of cake!

Fun with Sculpey!

Coming up next: Wednesday workshops!

February Theatre Vacation Week!

SOME PIG!

Greetings from this year's February Vacation Theatre Workshop!

This February, our students worked hard to produce E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. Theatre Directors, Angela Merrill and Kirsten Brown worked together to write the script, adapted from E.B. White's magnanimous tale about life, death and friendship.

 

Wilbur at the Country Fair Auction!

 

Our two narrators animatedly tied the different acts and scenes together.

Fern and her family eating breakfast and discussing the birth of runt, Wilbur.

Growing Wilbur and his new pen at Zuckerman's farm.

 

Farm animals meeting Wilbur. See Charlotte in the corner?

 

Zuckerman's Famous Pig!

A special 'Thank you' to cast and crew for acting in and producing this show! For those that are new to Creative Arts, students attending our vacation week theatre program act in, make costumes, props and sets for a full-length production - IN ONE WEEK! Students audition on the first day and are off-book (without a script) by the second day. By the end of the week, everyone has a great time and makes new friends.

Teacher Feature: Lee Hadden

I think it's time to share the 'secret lives' of our faculty; that is, lives of our faculty outside teaching at Creative Arts!
Lee Hadden has taught at Creative Arts since 2002, a little over 8 years.
He teaches violin and viola (Suzuki and Traditional) on Wednesdays. When not at Creative Arts, Lee is extremely busy taking lessons, performing, observing other instructors, and teaching music at a variety of different schools including Hartt School of Music in CT and his home studio in Newton. Other than teaching, Lee loves woodworking and angling.
He sent me a few pictures of his favorite hobby to share with our community.

Lee fishes at Walden Pond every morning. This means waking up well before sunrise to get a few hours' worth of fishing in before tending to his busy work schedule.

 Brown Trout caught at Walden Pond

Ask Lee about his annual fishing record. Last year he caught 159 trout, 92 Black Bass, 18 Silver Bass, 3 Walleye, 1 Striped bass and a few Perch!

This was taken on a fishing trip to the Great Lakes.

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Check out the bait fish used to catch the large one!
Since Lee began keeping records, his best fishing season consisted of 282 trout, 21 Black Bass, 2 Silver Bass, 1 Fluke, 1 Steel Head salmon, a few dozen Perch and Silver Bass, and 8 Sheep Head!

Close up of teeth from a Parrot fish, which Lee caught on vacation in Mexico. Parrot fish primarily eat algae, an organism living symbiotically inside coral. Using its front teeth, Parrot fish scrape coral off reefs and extract algae by grinding up the coral in their throats. They pass the indigestible calcified coral 'skeleton,' which builds up on the sea floor resembling sand. Parrot fish also nip ears of divers when they get too close! Ouch!

Another curious fact about Lee: he practices violin and viola EVERY DAY. In fact, his record is 2,507 consecutive days of practice. That's 6 years and a little over 8 months of uninterrupted practice time. If you take music and wonder why you're not advancing...are you practicing every day? That's what it takes to improve and learn technique. Hard work does pay off!