DAPHNE, Ala.—For Bay Rivers Art Guild’s campers, summer is not just for sitting around the swimming hole, catching missed TV shows or beating high scores on a zombie video game. It’s also a time for children to learn skills and continue to sharpen their creativity and critical-thinking processes.

 During week three, campers learned basic elements of art by studying French abstract artist Piet Mondrian and introductory theater skills through memory and spacing exercises.

Mondrian lessons

“Elementary My Dear,” a course designed for ages 4 to 6, teaches campers the basic elements of art.

“We’re learning about line, shape and color,” art teacher Nancy Timmons said.

The class made abstract designs—using strips of black construction paper, small squares of colored paper and glue—modeled after Mondrian’s “Broadway Boogie Woogie.”

The piece itself is mathematical in nature. Mondrian’s work was famously inspired by music. Each part of “Broadway” corresponds to a note played in the jazz records he was listening to at the time.

“He was listening to music when he did his art,” Timmons said. “He was working to the tempo.”

To help campers better understand Mondrian’s creative process, Timmons asked the class to tap out a beat and try to keep rhythm with her.

The class also learned about colors the artist used—white, black, blue, yellow and red. White and black are neutral colors while blue, yellow and red comprise primary colors.

When asked if they knew what primary colors were, almost half the class raised their hands.

“I already learned that in my pre-school,” Jessica Quint, 5, said.

Laura Moore, 5, said she’s learned about “R-O-Y-G-B-I-V,” a well-known abbreviation that stands for spectrum colors. “It’s in the sky after the rain,” she said, referring to a rainbow—or color spectrum.

The class recently created paper rainbows to help understand the concept of color spectrum.

“We also learned about ‘tear bears,’” Julien Claire, 4, said.

Creating ‘tear bears’ involves tearing round paper and shaping it into a bear. The exercise taught the class how to work with circles.

Learn to believe

In “Lights, Camera, Action,” an introductory theater class for children ages 5 to 8, campers learn the fundamentals of stage movement and speech.

Students practiced spacing by counting steps in a circle and by playing “leap frog,” where one person jumps over the person in front of them.

They also practiced—on a Daphne Bulletin reporter—using theater makeup. Students needed a model to practice on; they had to apply a “fake bruise” on parents attending the camp the next day. Teacher Martha Lynch combined purple, red, green, yellow and blue to create a very realistic looking bruise on the reporter’s forearm.

Lynch, a renowned theater producer, stressed to her students the importance of believing in themselves.

“You have to believe what you are saying when you are acting,” Lynch said. “You have to believe it.”

For details on open spaces in the camp’s remaining two weeks of classes, call BRAG headquarters at 621-0659.