Eclectic art

Coral Wilson

Eleven-year-old Shannon Bergelend was initially reluctant to join Art

at the Beach, a children’s summer art camp at the Huntington Beach

Art Center.

“I kind of thought it was boring -- just drawing and coloring,”

she said.

During the weeklong camp, the children experimented with paper

mache, stitching, stamps, printmaking, kites and sandcastles. And

slowly Shannon’s perspective began to change.

“Art is many different things,” she said. “You can go from making

board games to just drawing. And you can have a lot of fun with art,

if you try to.”

The children made their own collograph plates, creating designs of

various textures by gluing objects to a piece of paper.

Instructor Carla Hubbart passed out their completed projects --

cityscapes, a mermaid, butterflies, oceans and abstract designs made

of macaroni, spaghetti, string, buttons, foam, plastic grid, bubble

wrap, Starbucks coffee sleeves, packing paper and lightbulb boxes.

“I like watching them figure out how to use unexpected materials

in an art project ... to think about things outside of their normal

use,” Hubbart said.

The children prepared to begin their next project -- printing

collographs. Hubbart showed them how to layer their collographs with

multicolored paint and press their designs onto paper.

“Ready, set, go,” she said.

A dozen children stormed the table, attacking the plates of

silver, yellow, purple, red, black, white, blue and turquoise paint.

The children tried different paper and color combinations, as many

as they could imagine.

“I’m done,” Gina Lovenitti, 10, said 20 minutes and several prints

later.

Hubbart offered other suggestions -- to print backward or to print

another child’s collograph on top of their own.

Gradually, the children’s attention spans came to an end. Some

continued with their stitching projects. Jianna Bonomi, 10, practiced

sign language with Jessica Hurtado, 12, who was hearing-impaired.

“[The camp] is fun,” Jianna said. “I get to make new friends like

Jessica and talk to her in sign language. I say ‘Hi Jessica,’ ‘See

you later,’ ‘Are you having a good time?’ and I think that makes her

happy.”

An hour later, after everyone else had moved on to other projects,

Shannon was still adding the final touches to her last print.

“I am working on a red, blue and silver print,” she said. “I

already have four done. I am doing different prints to see how many I

can do and how many patterns I can do.”

After Shannon added the last layer of silver, recreational

assistants Kelly Esparza and Nicci La Piana carefully picked up the

long piece of paper that had protected the table. The brown piece of

paper had been transformed -- covered and splashed with color. They

would hang it on the wall, use it in a scrap book or maybe make it

into wrapping paper, they agreed.