Description
We are excited for a beautiful + creative summer 2026!
Bringing the joy, the fun, SO much art, lots of choices, plus bits of singing, playing, and all the goodness, we are super excited for this summer’s art camps! Each week is a fun theme that we make tons of gorgeous individual + collaborative art about. Every choice has lots of mixed media, and we shift the projects a tad depending on the group.
Fun mixed-age camp options:
– Younger artists (ages 4 – 8) are 1/2 days, 9 am – noon
– Mixed-age artists (ages 6 – 12) are full days, 9 am – 3 pm
– Tad older artists (ages 10 – 15) are full days, 9 am – 3 pm
Waiting list
If you don’t get into your choice, please email us right away through the CONTACT button on our home page and submit your camp week choices to get on the waiting list!
Spots open up, and we can also add extra camps if needed!
wk 1 – strawberry joy
June 29, 30, 1 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – 3pm
Ages 6 – 12 / $290
Creativity will launch our summer, and Maine native and wild berries will guide us. We will be making art + craft all about this topic! Imagine a mini “berry + local produce” food cart, berry-themed paintings, sculptures, collages, jewelry, a collaborative mini cookbook, plus a delicious strawberry cooking project and more 🙂
wk 2 – mini garden love
Part 1 – July 6, 7, 8 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – 3pm
Ages 6 – 12 / $290
Part 2 – July 9, 10 / Thur, Fri / 9am – noon 1/2 day, younger artists
Ages 4 – 8 / $110
We will celebrate all things garden through artmaking. Imagine building tiny paper gardens, food, and people out of recycled/upcycled materials to make your own little garden plot to take home that will be part of a collaborative community art garden! For older children, our studio is near a community garden, where we will visit to do plein-air painting and drawing. For our ½-day younger-child option, the garden will come to us in our little outdoor courtyard!
wk 3 – sun + clouds + birds
Part 1 – July 13, 14, 15 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – noon 1/2 day, younger artists
Ages 4 – 8 / $170
Part 2 – July 16, 17 / Thur, Fri / 9am – noon 1/2 day, younger artists
Ages 4 – 8 / $110
Bringing the total magic of summer and open creative exploration to our youngest artists, this special art camp has been designed just for them! A half day of fun, gorgeous studio time is the perfect way to launch a day. We will be inspired by Maine song birds, cloud + sun finger puppets, giant paintings, color, and working on larger collaborative art together!
wk 4 – puppet theater
July 20, 21, 22 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – 3pm
Ages 6 – 12 / $290
In this super creative art camp, we will create individual and larger collaborative animal puppets! Playing with them against the backdrop with props of a puppet “stage”, we will create and illustrate a little story about our puppets. We are excited to explore the history of puppet-making and the art we can animate and play with at home, long after art camp!
wk 4 – art journals + artist studio visits
July 23, 24 / Thur, Fri 9am – 3pm
Ages 10 – 15 / $190 tad older kids
For this tad older kid camp, we will explore mixed media, drawing, painting, and collage, focusing on the structure of the art journal to house our creations. Building a fun, gorgeous art journal is a powerful way to keep documenting, drawing, and writing throughout the summer. This 2-day art camp will spend part of one day visiting artist studios within walking distance of studio in Portland!
wk 5 – fashion + me
July 27, 28, 29 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – 3pm
Ages 6 – 12 / $290
At this camp, we will make a little outfit for our stuffed animals and dolls, and accessories to match – for ourselves! What is the fashion of our time? Collaborating with our teachers and re-purposing Maine industry textiles, we will play with materials and techniques (hand + machine sewing, crochet, knitting, tieing, stamping, etc) to see what we can come up with. For this camp, please bring your favorite doll (or stuffy) so we can support them with new fashion, and take them on an adventure (why not?). At the end of this camp, we will do a little “fashion show” to celebrate!
wk 6 – make a dollhouse
August 3, 4, 5 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – 3pm
Ages 6 – 12 / $290
Creating a house that is part toy, part art, and part architectural model, we will be sanding wood, lightly painting, and decorating with pattern, textiles, art and furniture. This camp is sure to be a hit!
wk 7 – all things mud + fairy houses
August 10, 11, 12 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – 3pm
Ages 6 – 12 / $290
Children will explore art-making methods through the lens of nature. In this zero-plastic and zero-traditional-art-materials camp, play meets art meets the future while we create with all-natural materials, including mud paint, hand-made paint from plants and rocks, and make our own paintbrushes. We will build our own fairy houses to take home and also build some outside ones, and who knows, maybe the fairies will visit?! Fairy tales from around the world will be woven into our time.
wk 8 – flower magic
August 17, 18, 19 / Mon, Tues, Wed / 9am – 3pm
Ages 6 – 12 / $290
The flowers will be blooming, and we are going to celebrate, study, and make art about them. Sunflowers, Maine Native flowering plants, edible flowers, and more will guide us in making our own paints, potions, and crafts. We will also bust it out with both tiny and large, gorgeous still-life paintings.
*extra info
before art camp!
We will send you a welcome email before your art camp, reminding you of the camp ahead and any items you need to bring.
> Each parent/guardian must sign the online forms that we will also send (including media form, release form, and other important info) that will arrive in your welcome email this spring.
> Come ready to have fun and become a part of the studio! It’s always good to wear clothes that it’s OK to get dirty too. We will detail all of this in our welcome email.
> Our snack and lunch time happens outside in our courtyard, and for full days in the park with fun playground play!
cancellation policy
If you need to cancel, please reach out to us. Our policy is that if you cancel before May 1, we can issue you a refund, less $50 for staff and processing fees. If you cancel after that, we can’t refund because if we don’t fill it, we won’t be able to make our bills, as our summer art camps sustain the studio. If you need to cancel a camp due to illness, we will set you up with a big art kit to do at home, and we will layer in some make-up days or other options and work with you so you can still have the fun! If we need to cancel a camp due to illness or unforeseen circumstances of our team, we will first try to reschedule the camp days. If we can’t, we will issue gift cards and art kits, but no full refunds will be given. For weather-related cancellations, we will offer make-up dates. We are a very small art studio, so thank you for your partnership on this!
what
Each camp has an innovative, funky, and fun, project-based theme and curriculum that we adjust slightly to the energy and members of the group! Our projects are influenced by nature, and contemporary/historical artists and change-makers. Specific books will be carefully curated to align with the themes of each week, with thoughtful, caring discussions, playful games, nurturing fun yoga, and some singing and play interwoven into each day. All materials are high quality, sustainably, and mindfully chosen–recycled/repurposed or ethically made. Each art camp this season comes with a fun art journal! Each day, a different art process in the studio greets the children and launches our work together!
Besides the fun thematic projects, we will weave in choice time to paint on easels, play, and always choices for project work. Our creative teaching approach is inquiry-based and responsive, and we support and respect the curiosity and imagination of the young child. We will do a snack outside, and then for full-day art camp, we usually have lunch in our studio courtyard, park or playground. After lunch, we play at the nearby Tying Street playground, will do an all-fruit popsicle (with parent approval), and then keep at the art and studio play!
who
We welcome and celebrate a group of mixed-age children and work to give camp choices to accommodate them. Each art camp will be run by a team of highly trained and thoughtful art teachers, with support from engaged artist/creative assistants. We always have two caring teachers during art camps, and sometimes a 3rd assistant!
healthy community
For the safety and health of all, we have a robust, healthy studio process that we need everyone to adhere to, to maintain a safe community. We ask that everyone work with us to make sure your children come to the studio healthy. We run an air filter and are super into handwashing. We also have children’s masks – if you ever need one, don’t hesitate to ask. Also, we will have windows open and our air filter running all summer!
our space
Our space is fun and joyful, bright, and known as Love Lab Studio. The design is thoughtfully curated for the needs of the children. We are located at 26 Brackett Street, a mixed residential and retail neighborhood in the West End of Portland. This year, our camp will happen both inside our studio (with windows open, ceiling fans, and Hepa filters on) and outside in our temporary outside studio patio garden and park when we can. You will arrive at the bright studio usually with nice music playing. We take off your shoes, find your cubby and hooks to store your things, then wash your hands at the art sink, and we have a project to get into a warm-up right away! It is very calm and super engaging! The children do their warm-up project, then we gather, circle up, and go through our fun activity choice areas and project themes!
some of our values
Our team of caring art teachers has professional backgrounds like: studio/craft/public artists and designers, certified and classroom art teachers, Waldorf-inspired/trained, Reggio Emilia-inspired/trained, advanced degrees, service learning, college teaching experience, contemporary art education pedagogy of all kinds, and more. We weave projects every day that are directed towards opening our minds to be deeply caring and embracing the diversity of humans and nature. Other values include:
* The whole child: social & emotional development, inclusion within a deeply caring and welcoming community
* Child as a communicator + poet: language development through participation, listening, art
* Child as co-creator: project-based, hands-on, individual learning and collaboration
* Child as an informed citizen: community member, global + ecological participant. We care for each other and work to improve our ability to do so all the time.
* Child as artist: centering arts, creativity, imagination, joy + healing in all we do!
We look forward to seeing you at the studio!