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We are excited to offer full-day art camps (9:00 am to 3:00 pm with aftercare available) in the ever-hip, fun neighborhood of Del Ray in Alexandria, Virginia, for the Summer of 2014!  We’ll be running four sessions, one each week from July 8 through August 2.

To register for a camp, please click here to print and complete the Summer 2014 Art Camp Registration Form. Once the registration form is completed, please mail it with a $45 supply fee deposit to Luisa Tio, P.O. Box 2442, Alexandria, VA, 22301. In addition, at least one week before your child’s camp begins, please complete and send to the same address the Emergency Contacts, Health, Media and Walking Field Trip Forms (Summer 2013) which can be found here.

Camp Sessions.  Each week the children will see the world around them in new ways and express their creativity in a small group environment. Children will get to use a wide variety of drawing, painting, and sculpting media to explore different artistic ideas and their own artistic visions. We’ll also take at least one field trip each week to find inspiration in the world around us or to see some of the amazing art that we have right in our own backyard. Stories and narratives will help us travel through time and and around the globe to learn about different artists and cultures.

Here are the incredible fun camps we are offering this summer!

Week One: Environmental Art
June 30-July 4, 2014

Bottle caps? Sticks? Cabbage? Are they art? We’ll find out this week as we learn how artists use their imagination to transform everyday objects into art! Museums all over the world have sculptures, paintings, and mosaics made of stuff that was just lying around until an artist saw something new. We’ll discover how trash becomes treasure; how artists like Andy Goldsworthy make art out of nature; and how art can celebrate and protect our environment. Camp will be at UpCycle, 1712 Mt. Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, in Del Ray.

Week Two: Art Genius
July 7-July 11, 2014

Where is our artistic genius? We all have it – and this week we’ll explore the genius of several great artists to help us find ours! Leonardo da Vinci made meticulous observations of the world around him to help him invent, draw, and paint. Georgia O’Keeffe recreated landscapes and objects on canvas in a completely unique way. Frank Lloyd Wright’s innovative designs and patterns from Fallingwater to the Guggenheim Museum drew on the environment and influenced generations. We’ll learn to see what these great artists saw and in the process discover and develop our own unique talents. Camp will be at Commonwealth Academy, 1721 Leslie Avenue, Alexandria, in Del Ray.

Week Three: The Real French Revolution
July 14-July 18, 2014

On Day 1 of camp this week, the French celebrate storming the Bastille and the French political revolution, but another French revolution has affected us just as much: the French revolution in art! We’ll re-live the days when Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh, Degas and Cezanne created the radical techniques of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and explore how they turned the art world upside down. Like them, we’ll draw, paint landscapes and people, explore light and texture, and learn new painting techniques. We’ll also look at how French sculptor Rodin changed sculpture and challenge ourselves by carving and sculpting with clay. Camp will be at Commonwealth Academy, 1721 Leslie Avenue, Alexandria, in Del Ray.

Week Four: Art from around the World
July 21-25, 2014

Everyone sees the world a little differently, and we can expand our creativity by exploring how different people around the world create art. We’ll sail to China to make terracotta warriors, scroll paintings, and calligraphy. Then we’re off to the Down Under, to do aboriginal painting and art inspired by the Great Barrier Reef. We’ll land in South Africa to recreate Ndebele designs and finish in the Pacific Northwest of North America with Tlingit totem poles. Camp will be at Commonwealth Academy, 1721 Leslie Avenue, Alexandria, in Del Ray.

Registration. To register your young artist for camp, please click here to print and complete the Summer 2014 Art Camp Registration Form. Once the registration form is completed, please mail it with a $45 supply fee deposit to Luisa Tio, P.O. Box 2442, Alexandria, VA, 22301. In addition, at least one week before your child’s camp begins, please complete and send to the same address the forms for Emergency Contacts, Health, Media and Walking Field Trip Forms (Summer 2014) which can be found here. Camp Sessions will be July 8-12, July 15-19, July 22-26, and July 29 – August 2.

End-of-Camp Gallery Celebration. Each session will culminate on Friday afternoon with a celebration of the children’s art and a show for the children to display and share their work. This camp is for children who love to create!

Director and Instructor. Luisa Tio will lead each session. Luisa is a full-time art teacher at Matthew Maury Elementary School in Alexandria with many years of experience directing and teaching art and creative camps. She also is a studio artist herself who loves to create, and her teaching experience has engendered a love for large collaborative projects with her students and others. She earned her B.A. in Art from Duke University and her M.A. in Studio Art from NYU. You can learn more about Luisa here.

Tuition. Tuition for each camp session will be $300, plus a $45 supply fee that will serve as the deposit. All checks should be made out to Luisa Tio. The $45 supply fee is non-refundable and should be paid by check mailed with the registration form to Luisa Tio, P.O. Box 2442, Alexandria, Virginia, 22301. The balance of $300 tuition is due four weeks before the start of the session your child will be attending.

Cancellation policy. We sincerely hope that nothing occurs that will prevent your child from being able to attend art camp! However, we understand that life sometimes throws us curves. The $45 supply fee is non-refundable due to the need to order supplies in advance of the start of camp.  However, if you cancel before your tuition is due in full four weeks before the start of camp, we will return any additional payments that you have made.  After the tuition due date and the week before the relevant camp session, we will return one-half of the $300 tuition payment if you need to cancel.  Regretfully, we will not be able to provide any refund in the final week prior to the start of your child’s session.  However, we will work with you to see if there is room in another camp session that your child could join.

More Information. If you have questions or want more information, please email Luisa Tio at luisatio@earthlink.net or call at 703-599-7923.

Welcome! We look forward to welcoming your young artist!