Program Spotlight — Omanut (Arts & Crafts)!

Rrrrip! Rrriipp!  You may be wondering what that new sound is in Omanut.  It's campers enjoying a chug of duct tape art.  Yes, a duct tape craze has over taken Camp Ramah.  Many of these cool duct tape items can be seen adorning the heads of the littlest campers to Nivonmers in the form of colorful hair bows while duct tape wallets and belts were the project of choice for the guys.

 
Our specialist with talent of super hero proportion is Eyal Chirurg, who comes to camp with super hero drawing ability!  There isn't anything he can't draw.  From cartoons to Zimkudiya banners, Eyal is teaching a great chug on cartooning emphasizing drawing basics and teaching the campers a cartoon's message is a big part of creating cartoons.

 
All campers who participated in Fiber Arts were treated to a canvas messenger bag, banner or tote to paint and personalize with acrylic paint and bottles of a resist mixture of flour and alum.  The squirt bottles of resist are used to create the contour lines of their designs.  At the end of the process the flour and alum lines are cracked off to reveal a lovely batik look without using hot wax.

As usual, our outstanding Omanut staff has assisted and taught our campers many new skills and techniques.  Some campers are leaving camp with three silk-painted pillows and proud of their silk scarfs of many colors.  A couple of silk-painted tallits were shown off and modeled on Shabbat.  Our glass fusing station featured glass in many new forms to add embellishments to glass picture frames, bracelets, night lights, slumped tea light holders, pendants and earrings.  When campers aren't using glass to create jewelry, many are enjoying creating adornments with an array of glass beads in all sorts of vibrant colors and sizes.  Our outstanding specialist, Samantha Weiser, has patience for the smallest of seed beads to magically turn them into dangles from hoops and twists of wire for beloved earrings.  A few luckly moms with their sons in the beading chug will be sporting many wonderful new jewelry items.  True to Samantha's creative style, she taught the campers how to turn light, fluffy feathers into exotic looking jewelry. 

One extremely luckly mom is the proud owner of a papier mache purple and brown sploched cow!  Campers used their imagination to transform stuffed plastic bags and other recyclables into everything from cows and cupcakes to top hats and wooly sheep.  Once their creative armatures were secured with lots of tape, the campers carefully covered them with plaster wrap.  The next day the hardened sculptures are ready for painting. 

 
We always have two clay stations.  One for learning how to center and pull pots on the potter's wheel and one for rolling and pinching formless clay into kiddush cups, chanukkiahs, bowls, lidded boxes stamped and textured to whimsical wind chimes.

Thanks for a great month in Omanut!