DEBORAH CORRAO / L’Observateur / August 14, 1999

“Children are so uninhibited,” says Evelyn Dupuy, member of the St.

Charles Art Guild. “There’s an openness about what they do. They’re sointeresting to watch.”Thirty children who have completed first through third grades attended the fifth annual art camp sponsored by the St. Charles Art Guild.The week-long camp gave the aspiring artists a chance to work with several art media and to get some hands-on instruction from some of the area’s most prominent artists.

A $35 fee to attend the camp went toward the purchase of art supplies the children used throughout the week and took home after camp was over.

While some of the children who attended camp have attended in the past, some were newcomers and got their first experience with the use of watercolors.

“Some of them are afraid of watercolors; they hardly have any paint on their paper,” says Ruby Reaves, who helped to coordinate the camp. “Butwait till this afternoon.”Reaves has been instrumental in obtaining grants to fund the annual program. The grant comes from the Louisiana State Arts Council and theLouisiana Division of the Arts as administered by the Houma-Terrebonne Arts & Humanities Council.

The children worked with watercolors to create an aquarium scene. Theypainted the background of water and seaweed and waited overnight for it to dry. On this day, they would paint in the fish.”Yesterday you drew an aquarium,” Reaves tells the young artists. “Todayyou are going to put the fish in it, and they will be the most beautiful fish.

“Look what happened when I painted,” says 7-year-old Andrew Ingram, referring to a place on his canvas where his blue paint mixed with water had dripped before drying. “It made the shape of an octopus.”Children are encouraged to draw their own fish or use models provided by the instructors and hung on the wall.

It doesn’t take long for all 30 of the children to tackle the task.

Whitney Webre, 8, of Luling was attending her second summer art camp.

“I like painting the fish,” she says. “I get to use a whole lot ofwatercolors.”Several children need fresh water to wash their brushes.

“I’m the dirty water person,” says Marilyn Duffy, project coordinator this year, as she replenishes the water in their bowls with fresh water from a pitcher she is carrying.

“The children are so talented,” she says. “It’s amazing.”The instructors for the 1999 camp were Mary Moate, Nancy Kiesman and Lorraine Gendron.

Gendron, a local sculptor who has attained national renown, worked with the children to create clay replicas of magnolias. She took their workhome, fired it and brought it back later in the week.

Throughout the rest of the week, the children experimented with oil pastels, watercolor pencils, scratch boards and three-dimensional canvasses, using scraps of cloth glued on their art paper to create pictures.

The St. Charles Art Guild organized over 30 years ago and remains a loose-knit group of about 55 members committed to promoting the visual arts in the River Parishes.

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