Art Badge Camp

Our Temporary Art Gallery

In the South, the advent of summer vacation is always marked by church posters advertising VBS ... Vacation Bible School. You can't miss it--they're everywhere! I can remember one summer, as a little girl, walking with my cousins to the nearest church to attend Vacation Bible School. VBS is mostly given in the evenings these days, but back then, there were enough homemakers sufficient to provide it during the daytime.  

For the most part I enjoyed the experience and many times when my children were young, I wondered why the LDS didn't do something "like unto it." So one summer, as I was helping with Cub Scouts and Webelos, I offered to put on an "Art Camp" in order to get through a pretty involved Cub Scout Art Badge. I think it was only two or three days, and I had one other mom as a helper. I think we did pizza one day, and they brought their lunches the other days.  

Most of the boys pictured are wearing one of their first art projects: screen-printing t-shirts. Of course our's say "Scout Art Camp." Each boy brought their own t-shirts and I had plenty of paints left over from past Girl Scout projects. These shirts made good art smocks so their clothes stayed clean.

The boys masterpieces included a variety of mediums such as water colors, crayon resists, and dark and light profiles. Then I laminated their work and linked them together to display our "gallery" of art projects on a bulletin board in the church hall. I stressed to the boys that because we are working in the church, we must do our best to clean up after ourselves and be careful with the art materials. Having a small group helped to keep things under control, and the boys were encouraged to "leave no trace" in their clean up.

Because I love owls, this is my favorite "work of art" by my son.

Art badge requirements found here: http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Cub_Scout_Art