In the fall of 2024 I sent a proposal for a 6-week mixed-media workshop to Sky Blue Studios. They are an awesome local studio that offers lots of creative workshops, the space is great for hosting birthdays and things like that. I was blessed to hear my proposal got accepted, for 6 Saturdays throughout September and October I hosted two sessions of my workshop. The earlier workshop was for children age 5-7, and the second group was aged 7-12.
I did my best to offer a very diversified lesson plan, in hopes of allowing the children to explore their own interests and creativity without much dictating as to how they should go about it. I tried to make it so each lesson built more upon the creative process as the workshop went on, with each week offering it’s own set of goals and challenges.
WEEK 1: This is more of a basic introduction to creating mood board type projects, and exploring our own inspirations and ow those translate to our ideas.
WEEK 2: This workshop was meant as an exercise in using out of the box tools and materials to create something unexpected.
WEEK 3: This workshop was about creating from scratch. Using every day household items in the production steps of process work. A prelude to our clay sculpture workshop.
WEEK 4: Using oven baked clay, we explored creation in the 3RD dimension. And that sometimes we need to work slow and gentle to produce the ideas we hope for. Practice & Pateince.
WEEK 4: This workshop was a bit of a challenge for some of the participants. It was a very repetitive process that annoyed some of the children. Although they were very happy with the final piece. I learned a lot about lesson prep and how to better prepare myself and my materials to better suit the needs of the participants involved.
WEEK 6: To culminate my workshop plan, we sew buddies. Using scrap fabrics and felt squares, we created stuffed animals and objects from scratch. Learning basic pattern making, as well as hand-stitching.
Nicholas Ridiculous 