In this new program for 10- to 12-year-olds, participants will be invited to explore a wide range of artistic mediums, including painting, illustration, printmaking, sculpture, model making, and textile art. In continuity with our flagship programs for 4- to 9-year-olds, preteens will also be introduced to an artist of the week, allowing them to engage with an artistic practice in a more mature and in-depth way.

Each day, they will create and experiment with a project inspired by the works of the week’s featured artist, while participating in playful cultural mediation activities that help them discover these iconic creators. A weekly drawing class will further strengthen their technical skills and sense of observation.

Every week, the group will take part in an outing to a Montreal museum related to the featured artist’s practice. Possible destinations include the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Architecture, or the Museum of Contemporary Art. A local artist represented in our boutique will also meet with the children to share their artistic approach and experience.

The week will be punctuated with free time at La Fontaine Park or atop Mount Royal, where participants can enjoy time together, sketch in their notebooks, or simply take in Montreal’s natural surroundings.

They will leave with multiple artworks, meaningful experiences, enriching artistic references, and new friends, ready to keep exploring their creativity long after the camp ends.

Week 4 – Shuvinai Ashoona

This week, preteens will explore the fascinating world of Shuvinai Ashoona, an Inuit artist and illustrator from a prominent family of creators. Through her monumental drawings, she delves into the culture, stories, and history of her community. Using simple materials such as colored pencils and markers, often underestimated mediums, she creates delicate, rich, and highly distinctive images that merge poetry, modernity, and tradition.

Inspired by her artistic universe, participants will take part in drawing and coloring workshops, working both on the wall and on the floor to express themselves on a large scale. The emphasis will be on free drawing, imagination, and intuition. They will also participate in a screen-printing workshop and leave with a one-of-a-kind print.

A cultural mediation session will introduce Shuvinai’s work and highlight the importance of drawing as a foundational practice shared across many artistic disciplines.

Finally, a visit to the Redpath Museum of Natural History will allow participants to observe a remarkable diversity of animals and draw inspiration from them to enrich their creations, echoing one of the artist’s central themes: nature.

This week encourages children to use their bodies and the space around them to create in a monumental way, while learning to let go of perfection, because sometimes striving for “perfect” gets in the way of true artistic expression.