Announcing 2014 Winter Class Schedule- Registration is OPEN

Handmade Holiday Workshop- Drop off the kids and get some Holiday shopping done!

Junior Artist Holiday Workshop

Art Therapy & Art Parties- Now taking RSVP's!

Announcing ARTUCOPIA 2013!

FALL Art Classes- Now Registering!

Whitehall Farm Studios Fall Class Line-Up- Registration is OPEN! Classes begin the week of September 23rd, with the exception of Saturday AM Young Artist's Workshop which is set to begin Oct 12.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REGISTER HERE for Fall Session 2013

Summer Camps 2013

We just finished up our Summer Camp Season with FOUR Fantastic ART CAMPS!

Imagination, Nautical Nonsense, Astound Assemble & Explore, & Nature Abounds were all filled with smiling, creative children who spent a week at our studio exploring their artistic sides.

Polymer Toadstool made in our Imagination Camp

Week One: Imagination enraptured the students with a journey through developing their own stories.  Starting with imagining some fantastical characters, we thought long and hard about where our characters might live and what their stories might be.  Through clay, collage, watercolor, story stones, and finally creating a story book cover to cover, the students each imagined their very own illustrated book.

Jenny's Story Book 'Scaley and Zeus'

Jenny's Collaged Illustration for her story and characters

We even hollowed out some vintage books to create our own altered story books using our imagined characters and stories!

Interior of Jenny's hallowed book 'shadow box' illustrating her continued story 'Scaley and Zeus'

Week Two: Nautical Nonsense brought loads of silly, fun seaside artwork!  We scientifically observed some seaside objects in our Oceanic Studies, created 3-D Coral out of polymer clay, and made our own etching paper with some majestic ship etchings! We even made our own Oceanic Bio-Spheres!  Our deep-sea adventure was a blast!

In these DEEP SEA marine life collages, we layered our own drawings and cut-out images of what we might find deep under the ocean.  We considered the layers of the deep ocean, from the surface down to the black abyss of the bottom of the sea! What creatures did we find? Below are some colorful examples of our underwater explorations!

Boston Parents Paper- Best of the Best 2013

Whitehall Farm Studios made the top 5 Art Studios for the Boston Area!! 

 

This is a huge honor for us. Thank-you to all who voted!  

Check out this year's issue and all the winners for the Family Favorite Awards.

 

Art Therapy

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1914

Every Thursday evening at Whitehall Farm Studios, us ladies (and an occasional gentleman) get together and ART.  We let down our inhibitions and CREATE.  We run Art Therapy in a three-week session format, with a new theme every session.  We just completed our 'Watercolor Blooms' and they were as lovely to paint as they are to admire.

Rachael started the session off with a Ripped Watercolored Paper Floral, Beth's week covered Oversized Blooms, and Gretchen capped off the session with an ode to Charles Rennie Mackintosh with our own stylized Botanicals.

Gretchen's Botanical project emerged out of her admiration for Glaskow Art Nouveau watercolorists Charles Rennie Mackintosh (June 7, 1868 – December 10, 1928) and his wife Margaret MacDonald.   Mackintosh, a main representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement, derived his own fluid style out of Japonisme, because of its restraint and simple linear forms. Not every petal or stem was painted, but those that were burst forth with color. This contrast between color and line is what made Mackintosh and his wife some of the greatest watercolorists of their time.

The Project:

BEFORE-HAND: Soak a few sheets of watercolor paper in a warm coffee bath (Gretchen used Green Mountain Decaff- since it's a strong coffee, and she doesn't drink decaff, but had it on-hand).  Let them dry.

Step One:   Choose your Botanical Inspiration. We used images of our favorite plant life.

Step Two:   Delicately draw out the image, using a pencil. Use only lines.

Step Three:   Using a thin-line BROWN sharpee, draw in the lines of the floral.

Step Four:   Make sure you have added the special boxed botanical notation/date/signature!

Step Five:   Watercolor.  Some of Mackintosh's work is quite colorful, some is very restrained.  Some are nearly all painted in, some have barely any colored passages.  But all are just lovely.

OUR WORK:

Gretchen's Lotus

Beth's unknown flower

Chelsea's Hibiscus Bud

Carla's Echinacea

Robyn's Sunflower

Rachael's Blossoming Branch

Examples of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald's dream-like watercolors:

Mackintosh/MacDonald, 'Petunia' 1914

Mackintosh/MacDonald, 'Cactus Flower' 1915

  Mackintosh/MacDonald, 'Butterfly Flower' 1912

Mackintosh/MacDonald, 'Cuckoo Flower' 1910

Spring Camp



Karissa working intently on her oil pastel bug

Whitehall Farm Studio's Spring Camp- held April 16-18- finished with happy artists and beautiful work! Instructors Erin Graziano and Beth Newman brought enthusiasm and creativity each day as the campers busily worked on their projects.  Young artists in the making completed three projects during each day.

Day One:  All About Me

The Self Portrait

Young artists learned beginning facial proportions in our sure to be 'museum quality' self-portraits.

Chloe- Age 4

Callie- Age 6

Shaela- Age 4

Ella- Age 5

All About Me

Campers created a special piece 'all about' themselves.  Careful thought was put into what makes them unique and this was used to make their own personal artwork. 

Scarlett's thoughtful 'All About Me' piece

Day Two: Over the Rainbow 

Day two took us over the rainbow, through the clouds, and into the sky.  We started the morning by creating some interesting textures using paint and texture brushes to make colorful kites to fly in our blue skies, then we worked our way through our landscape of red poppies and finished the day with our rainbow tree rings.  

Up, Up, and Away Kites

Erin worked with the artists to create these soaring kites.  Lovely work!

Caitlin's Kites

Autumn cutting her Kites

Poppy Landscapes

Artists worked carefully to paint their fluid landscapes and then added the paper poppies, cut grass, and buttons and trim to finish their own poppy field. 

 Watercolor landscape with paper poppies and buttons

Callie's Poppies

Tree Ring Rainbows

The students painting their rainbow rings around the cut Maple tree slices.  Twine was tied to a hole in each in order to make them into a wall hanging.  



Tree Ring Rainbows

Day Three: Blooms and Bugs

 

We are loving the arrival of Spring!  We celebrated the new season by painting some vibrant watercolor blooms, studied some fascinating insects, and made our own paper-mache lightbulb bugs! 

Watercolor Blooms

Caitlin's Bloom

Callie's Blooms

Shaela's colorful rose- Age 4

Bright Insects

Student's studied the colors and lines of these unique insects as they worked on close-up oil pastels over black paper to make these amazing drawings!

Callie holding up her '89 Moth'- known for it's unique 89 wing marking

Caelie drawing the black lines on her bumble-bee

Lightbulb Bugs

Ladybugs, Bunble-Bees and Make-Believe Bugs out of lighbulbs!





We had a Creative Week here art Art Camp!  We hope to see you here for one our 4 Summer Camps!

Abigail listening to Ms. Erin's book reading