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River Grove art studio keeps students busy on break
At the Winter Camp at Scamp Studios in River Grove, Grace Carter, 8, owner Andrea Reyes, Jake McCoy, 5, and Cassandra Babelonia, 13, show how the painting 'The Scream' should look like for their print. | Kevin Tanaka~for Sun-Times Media.
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Updated: February 4, 2013 6:26AM
RIVER GROVE — During the holiday break some students put down their books and replaced it with artistic creativity.
It was part of a Winter Art Camp put together by Scamp Studios, 8221 W. Grand Ave. The art center offers arts education programs.
Andrea Reyes, studio owner, came up with the idea of an art camp as a way for youth to beat the boredom when school is not in session in the winter and summer.
Last week, eight students were busy at the studio, using oil pastel crayons to make a tunnel book, which is a three-dimensional painting. The group had the choice of copying one of two paintings: Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” or Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.”
“I do like his work,” Reyes said of Van Gogh. “I like it a lot for teaching purposes.”
Once completed, the students will have a paper frame of their picture with certain parts of the picture standing alone, giving it a layered effect.
Ian Babelonia, 11, Elmwood Park, said he enjoyed the activity and comes to the studio often although he prefers another medium when creating art.
“I draw and mess around with clay figures,” he said. “That’s what I like.”
Julia Howard, 10, Elmwood Park, enjoys drawing in colored pencil and using pastel paints together. Besides attending the camp she comes to the studio often.
“I like painting really bright pictures for my room,” she said. “I like it because it’s a lot of fun when you get to do art and do it your way.”
“All the kids we have are a super creative bunch,” Reyes said.
Reyes said she has always had a love of art. She earned a fine arts degree from Columbia College Chicago. Teaching art became part of her life over time. She said whenever she got a job involving art there was a teaching involved.
“I just found that when I started, I found these jobs doing creative work, but in the classroom,” she said.
“I can always make my own art, but I feel I’m doing something more exciting when I’m teaching it.”
Reyes finally decided to strike out on her own and has been in business for a year and a half. She is no stranger to the community, graduating from St. Cyprian Catholic School and Guerin College Prep High School in River Grove. She has family in Elmwood Park.
She said running her own studio has been a lot of hard work, but the community has been supportive.
“It’s a tough business,” she said. “Our supporters have been really great and they’ve been keeping me in business.”
Along with Winter Art Camp her studio offers art classes to everyone from pre-school children to adults. The classes she offers vary from introduction to drawing for children and adults to drawing and painting classes geared toward teenagers.
She gears most classes to children and teenagers because she believes they are seeing less of it in the classroom. “I find arts education as something that is necessary and gets overlooked,” she said.
“It teaches a lot of skill in a roundabout way,” she said.
“I like the challenge of helping people reach their goal,” she added. “I find it exciting especially when people do.”
