Combine your creativity with two fine arts medium, Poetry and Watercolor. This opportunity allows participants to experience both, and express themselves artistically in a number of ways. During the poetry segment, Averil reads poetry aloud and leads discussions to familiarize participants with the art form. Promoting team work, she then leads poetry games customized according to the groups’ ability and age.

Participants may be asked to choose three words from a hat and try to make a poem from them, or string together the first letters of their names in each sentence of the poem. Finally, the group may select a memory from the past and craft a poem about what they remembered or how the experience affected them. In the watercolor portion of the workshop, Averil demonstrates watercolor techniques with sponges, paper towels and paintbrushes. Using the newly created poetry, participants would use their imaginations and emotions to heighten their poems with imagery, creating original works of art to accompany their words. Depicting the feelings their poems evoke, images can be abstract or figurative and the artist will explain both terms. An original, unique and personal keepsake will result for participants to showcase, combining their poetry and watercolor.

Class size: 10-15 participants
Run time: 1.5 hours

Learn the history of art and how to best appreciate and understand it to heighten any experience at a museum or gallery. Averil will provide various paintings to examine from a variety of eras and explain the history of the works and artists who created them. Participants will learn new terms such as content and color, then have the opportunity to discuss each painting as a group including how the image makes them feel and what they think the artist was trying to convey. To grasp the concepts explored in this experience, each person will be asked to choose an image from the discussion and reproduce part of it using pastels or colored pencils.

Class size: 10-15 participants
Run time: 1 hour

Motivational Seminar: Individual Experiences Make Art Beautiful

Artist uses her personal art making in clay and drawing for discussion and inspiration. In response, participants will be encouraged to create a personal artwork by focusing on a portrait.  Each individual will be asked to place themselves in their work, either directly or indirectly. Challenges are universal and each individual makes the choice as to how personal the work becomes.

This 2 hour-long hands-on opportunity in clay will entail: rolling out a thick slab of clay, trimming it to shape, drawing into the clay and adding facial details.   Skills and tools for working with clay will be demonstrated.  All work will be fired and returned.

Class size: Artist requests assistant(s) for groups over 12 participants.  
Run time: 2 hours

Artist uses her personal journey in clay to discuss emotional healing.  Both slides and examples of her artwork will be displayed for viewing and discussion. In response, individuals will be asked to look at their personal challenges and use the clay to express themselves. Exploring the figure with attention to body language, scale and abstraction will inform and guide choices. Individuals determine size of work.  Continued dialog and help from the artist will be provided through out the session.

As an extended hands-on experience with clay, participants will be shown: clay hand building skills and techniques, sculptural construction methods and various clay tools.  Hollowing out the clay figures for drying and weight reduction purposes will be utilized.  All work will be fired and returned.

Class size: Artist requests assistant(s) for groups over 12 participants.

Run time: 3 hours

NOTE: Session can be formatted either as a solid three-hour time slot or 3 separate one-hour visits.

Program 1

Create your own Postcards! The Postcard Project workshop is open to all ages. Participants will create their own unique postcards. Using a digital camera, students will photograph the city of Philadelphia, portraits, buildings, city streets, and whatever else strikes the eye. The workshop will focus on composition, subject, and color to create beautiful, professional images. The class will then connect the cameras to a postcard printer so that each participant creates their own, individual unique postcard. The postcards are then ready for a personal note and a stamp. Each member can create at least five personal postcards.

Program Details

Duration: 2 Hours 30 Minutes

Size: This program can accommodate up to 15 people.

Julia Blaukopf will present photographs from her travels through Europe, Africa,
and throughout the United States and offer artistic tips of for capturing an interesting image. Julia is a Philadelphia based artist and photographer. Her artistic work has taken her to Ghana, to photograph for a women’s empowerment organization called Women in Progress; Kenya, to document a community in a small farming village plant trees with the Kenya Reforestation Project; Eastern Europe, where she captured images of writers for an international literary seminar; and many other independent excursions across the United States. She has lived with independent farmers in southern Italy, a travel writer in Lithuania, a mountain climber in Kenya, an artist in Copenhagen, and an adventurer in Ghana.

Julia seeks to share her personal tale as an artist enamored with world exploration
through photographs and writing. She is a storyteller, conveying the shared human
experience of families, workers, cultures, and places through her images.

Program Details

Duration: 1 hour

Size: This program can accommodate up to up to 50 people.