Island-hopping theme inspires Ligonier Valley art campers

Rita Haldeman’s young students are using sticks, stones, lots of paint, and even more imagination, to explore cultures and art forms from across the globe.

In her 20th year teaching art camps at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art’s Ligonier Valley location, the Jeannette artist decided to take this summer’s quintet of kids ages 9-16 on a “Trip Around The World In 10 Days.”

Haldeman is sharing what she’s learned about several distant and distinct islands, ranging from the Galapagos Islands at the equator to Iceland, and the class is using those locales as jumping-off points for a variety of art projects.

“We’re studying as much as we can about the islands,” she said, “and then we’ll have at least two or three varied projects with all sorts of media to relate to these places, so they’ll learn something and have something to remember about them.”

Going beyond the series of popular animated movies, Haldeman is taking her students on a deeper dive into the wildlife of Madagascar, known for its many varieties of chameleons. So, before the class ends on July 23, they’ll be producing chameleon-themed art.

The students will sculpt some of the animals they’ve learned about in papier-mache.

On Thursday, Lucy Vogelsang, 11, of Ligonier Borough, drew a sketch of a dolphin she plans to model. “I was researching what kinds of animals would live in the different places, and one of the more tropical places had a dolphin,” she explained.

Her friend and fellow art camper, Leah Bielke, also 11 and a Ligonier Borough resident, got extra inspiration for her fish sketch from a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

“I saw a ton of different colored fish, and fish I didn’t even know existed,” Bielke said. “Inside of the glass, they had a fish that was big, but it looked really thin. I was trying to recreate it.”

The students learned some art basics, including how to mix colors of acrylic paint and how to portray the different shades resulting from varied lighting.

“I told them not to use black paint,” Haldeman said. “Adding black to everything kind of muddies up the colors. I told them to look at the colors they can see in the shadows — blues, violets and magentas.”

Haldeman also stressed use of natural materials. The students painted ordinary round stones to resemble various gemstones. Vogelsang applied a purple hue to fashion a facsimile of amethyst, her February birthstone.

Combining contemporary abstract forms with the symbolic themes of traditional art from New Zealand, the campers painted sticks with multi-colored designs and will arrange them against a background to create wall hangings.

“This is summer, so it’s fun,” Haldeman said of the camp. “But I want them to learn something and definitely to have something substantial to take home.”