Thanks to the Normal Heights Community Council for special recognition; Honorable Mention for Best New Storefront Window on Adams Avenue. We like to share the joys of reycled scraps and art with all that pass by!

Contructed from recycled wood scraps, families assembled their table/altar and began the process of creating mini-offerings like fruits and vegetables, cakes and pies, pan de muerto (bread of the dead), flowers, and other details.  Using skulls and skeletons to enhance the altar, families explored many different combinations, making each altar so unique.

These sisters worked side by side making great pieces; notice the mini-papel picado hanging under the left altar, requiring patience and skill with scissors.

Using wood scraps, thread spools, and other recycled and reclaimed materials, the altars came alive…and the skeletons were dancing!

These mother-daughter altar pieces were award winning!  Can you see the wine bottle, newspaper, and the bounty of fruits and vegetables?  These are no ready-made Costco deli platters! 

With an assortment of speciality papers, recycled materials, pressed leaves, vintage postage stamps and more, participants decoupaged on 3-D forms, including bird houses.  In family classes, kids and adults can enjoy the process of creating together, colloborating or working on individual pieces.

These decoupage pieces were done on wood laminate squares, and below is a decoupaged wooden tea box.  The layering and creative compositional elements can draw you in….and then HOURS pass by…getting lost in decoupage is so fun!

Mess is never a problem with the Jackson Pollock Jr. class.  This youngster lavishes in the the easel paint, discovering that paint brushes are nice, but hands are what it’s really all about!

This 4-year-old creates a collage portrait using reycled scraps and buttons.  In Jackson Pollock Jr., young children (ages 3-7) get to experience a wide variety of mediums at self-serve stations.  This class is typically offerred once a month on a weekend.  Please see our class schedule for the next class.

Mini-Room Design, a key component of Rare Hare F.A.I.R (Fostering Artistic Ingenuity w/Recycling) allows kids the opportunity to create with a wide variety of recycled and reclaimed items to make their own room, house, and in some cases multi-level mansions!  Sky is the limit with mini-rooms, as students spend hours making furniture and designing their interiors with fabric, wood, tile, and plastic scraps.  It is amazing to watch the project in action; with endless possibilities, the kids are intensely focused on putting their vision into concrete forms.  There is someting innate in us all about nesting and making one’s own space reflect personality and to have it function effectively.  This 3rd grade student’s ingenuity with the scrap materials was highly creative and imaginative.  His idea of making stairs from tile scraps sent other students into a stair making frenzy! 

It was a beautiful day just south of Seaport Village for ArtWalk’s annual ArtWalk on the Bay, featuring KidsWalk, an area designated for kids to create art.   The Rare Hare F.A.I.R booth was in full effect, offering kids opportunities to make keychains and back pack ornaments from recycled materials.  A second project included using scrap slide card tabs to “tesselate” designs.  Similar to making mosaics or putting puzzles together, students used triangles and other shapes to create their own patterns.

During the Art and Social Commentary summer camp, middle school students discussed the work of Jasper Johns, specifically looking at his work Map from 1961.  Added to the discussion were themes of how the U.S is a “melting pot” with both “red and blue” states on the electoral map.  Students created their own interpretations of this symbolic and geographic form, using water color, collage and other mixed media to convey their ideas.

Inspired by Native American totem poles, students mixed influences of animals and social commentary, as well as allowing recycled cardboard forms to “shape” their own version of totem poles.

Students studied Monet’s water lily paintings, taking note of his use of light and reflection and his variations on color.  Students also practiced making tints (adding white to a color) and shades (adding black to a color) to add value and depth to their work.  After several studies in different mediums, students created a 3-D water lily pond, mixing paint with recycled and reclaimed objects.

This proud 2nd grader gave her 3-D water lily pond to her Dad for his birthday!

Sample studies by a 5th grader and a 2nd grader

Creating like the Fauves (French for Wild Beasts) and influened by the work of Paul Gaugin, students used bright bold colors, line, and repeating forms to create their own landscapes.

This second grade student apply glue to scraps for her 3-D lily pond.  The kids got “lost” in their lily ponds, having so much fun with the cool colors and reclaimed objects used for additional details.

A big hit in the Rare Hare Studio Window display;  This robot made by an 8-year old Henry, was assembled with recycled espresso cans and other scrap metal.  Passerbys would stop dead in their tracks to check out how we used these normally discarded items to make a robot (look out Wall-E!)

Ten weeks of summer camps and plenty of cool art to show!  With each week offering a different theme and age group, student artists create projects over the course of the whole week, taking breaks for walks in the neighborhood and stopping for a treat at Mariposa Ice-Cream down the street.  The studio was all a buzz with insects and robots, paper-making and weaving, fairy cottages and castles, and for older students, an exploration of art and social commentary.  As always at Rare Hare Studio, a running theme in many of the projects is the use of recycled materials ranging from buttons, ribbon, wood scraps, coffee cans, cardboard tubes, fabric, magazines, foam core, wire, etc.

As a part of Art and Social Commentary, middle school students discussed the history and culture connected with the murals in Chicano Park. 

Papermaking in process: Dipping the hand made screen in the water and blended pulp, then allowing the pulp to settle and drain, followed by “couching” the sheet of paper to dry.

In Sculpture with Scraps, this 3rd grade student made an alligator from cardboard and corks.

Using paper maiche and cardboard scraps, this student combined creature forms to create an entirely unique and original animal mask.

Students in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades observed and discussed how French painter Henri Matisse used form, color, and pattern to create harmony in his art work.  The first half of class pastels were used and in the second half we cut foam shapes similar to Matisse’s Jazz cut-out series.