Archive for the "Featured Events" Category

2023 Winter Intensives

Apply for a winter workforce intensive in entrepreneurship or public arts where you earn a stipend to learn and work! Open to students ages 14-19 who live in Dutchess County.

Arts & Entrepreneurship Intensive
December 4 – 15, 2023 
Monday – Friday | 3:00 – 5:30 PM
PUF Studios: 8 N. Cherry St, Poughkeepsie 

In this business start-up workshop, young entrepreneurs will receive support in generating their business ideas and clientele. 

Students will get the resources they need to establish: 
• Business branding (names/logos/mission statements)
• What services they can & will provide
• Generating Price Points for those services
• Generating leads for target customer for their business 
• How to draft and pitch client proposals and general agreements

Students ages 14-19 who participate and successfully complete all 25 hours of the workforce intensive will earn a $125 stipend and a chance to make a business ‘elevator’ pitch to a panel of business professionals.

Street Art Intensive
December 4 – 14, 2023 
Monday – Thursday | 3:00 – 5:30 PM
Pershing Studios: 45 Pershing Ave, Poughkeepsie

Bring art to the world by taking it to the streets! In this intensive, you’ll explore the world of street art from Graffiti and stenciling to sculpture, public painting, and more! Receive $100 stipend upon completion of the program!

Students ages 14-19 who participate and successfully complete all 20 hours of the workforce intensive will earn a $100 stipend!

2023 Summer Art Programs

DUTCHESS AND ULSTER ARTS CAMPS (AGES 5-10)

DAC digital

Dutchess and Ulster Arts Camps allow children to imagine, discover, create, and have fun each summer. Young artists explore fine art, digital media art, and performing arts while strengthening their self-confidence, creative thinking, and art making techniques both individually and in a collaborative setting. Professional artists and experienced teachers support hands-on art experimentation with a wide variety of artistic mediums including painting, sculpture, collage, and animation. The pieces created at camp will portray original narratives connecting to each camper’s interests and lives. Finished artwork and performances will be displayed in a final showcase each Friday in an open exhibition setting for campers to share with family and friends. Creativity thrives as campers explore and play!

Click on a week below to register:

School’s Out Camp – Poughkeepsie
Monday – Friday, 9:30 – 4:30pm
Pershing Studios – 45 Pershing Ave, Poughkeepsie
1 week only: June 26 – June 30

Dutchess Arts Camp – Poughkeepsie
Monday – Friday, 9am-4pm
Poughkeepsie Day School – 260 Boardman Rd, Poughkeepsie
Week 1: July 10 – July 14
Week 2: July 17 – July 21
Week 3: July 24 – July 28
Week 4: July 31 – August 4

Dutchess Arts Camp – Red Hook
Monday – Friday, 9am-4pm
Parish Hall,  St. Paul’s Lutheran Church – 7426 S Broadway, Red Hook
Week 1: July 10 – July 14
Week 2: July 17 – July 21

Ulster Arts Camp – New Paltz
Monday – Friday, 9am-4pm
SUNY New Paltz – 1 Hawk Dr, New Paltz
Week 1: July 24 – July 28
Week 2: July 31 – August 4
Week 3: August 7 – August 11

SUMMER ART INSTITUTE (AGES 11-19)

The Art Effect’s Summer Art Institute (including Junior Art Institute) takes young artists on a deep dive into their chosen medium while building foundational knowledge of techniques, elements and principles of fine or digital art. Intermediate and advanced students will develop and elevate their technical skills to create a dynamic portfolio. High school students interested in pursuing a degree in the arts will meet with college representatives and receive portfolio critiques through each two-week session.

Monday – Friday, 9:30 – 4:30pm
Dutchess Community CollegeAllyn Washington Center for Art & Science, 37 Gallery Circle, Poughkeepsie

Select a major based on the choices below. Each major includes different classes with developmentally-appropriate arts instruction. For more information, click on a two-week session below:

Foundational-level majors are recommended for youth ages 11-15 with little or no previous experience in fine or digital art.

Fine Art Foundations – Learn basic techniques, elements and principles of fine art through drawing, painting, mixed media, and collage.
One digital art class is also included. 

Digital Art Foundations – Learn essential elements and principles of digital art. Projects include digital painting, drawn animations, and graphic design.
One fine art class is also included.

The Portfolio Foundations major is recommended for youth ages 12-16 in high school with introductory experience in fine or digital art, or advanced middle school students.

Portfolio Foundations – Begin to develop a dynamic portfolio in drawing, painting, and digital art while expanding on fundamental drawing and painting skills in both visual and digital arts. Primarily working from observation and reference photos, students will learn composition, color theory, mark-making and narrative illustration. Projects will include still life, landscapes, self-portraits, and more!

Portfolio majors are recommended for intermediate-to-advanced level high school students ages 14-19 with experience in digital or fine art. 

SAI

Portfolio in Digital Art – Develop a dynamic portfolio while expanding on fundamental digital art skills in mark-making, working with layers, digital character design, animated expressive and narrative shorts, posters and web graphics, and digital composition.

Portfolio in Drawing & Painting – Use drawing, painting, and mixed media to experiment with conceptual works and create work that focuses on a personal vision and voice. Recommended for seniors with college applications on their mind.

Early drop-off available for an additional $25/day
Late pick-up available for an additional $25/day

Please email cory@thearteffect.org or call 845-471-7477 to schedule an early drop off/late pick up.

Additional Discounts

  • Multiclass/Sibling Discount: Save 5% when registering 2 or more children OR when you sign 1 child up for two or more weeks of camp.
  • Member Pricing: Save an additional 5% by signing up for a Students & Families membership, click here to “Become a Member.”
  • Scholarships: Scholarships are available to those in economic need, to apply please complete a Scholarship Application Form and send it to info@thearteffect.org.

Local Youth Create Art at MLK Jr. Day Open House

Open house success! More than 35 families stopped by The Art Effect on MLK Jr. Day to enjoy pizza and participate in workshop demos led by The Art Effect instructors Morgan Suter, Zach Reid, and Nia Scott.

Participants of all ages produced expressive paintings, figure drawing sketches, original melodies, and short animations. These wonderful works were only a preview of what students will learn this spring at The Art Effect in courses like Adventures in Digital Music, Portfolio in the Human Figure, and Exploring Digital Animation.

Learn more about & sign up for spring classes here! 

Also on display at this event were posters created by The Art Effect’s Media/Arts/Design Lab for the NYS Pollution Prevention Institute. These posters showed visitors easy yet effective ways to be more eco-friendly in their daily lives. 

It was incredible to welcome members of the community to 45 Pershing Avenue, and to see youth engage with different kinds of creative learning on their day off from school! From the paintings, sketches, songs and animations produced in workshop to the long-form collaborative posters from the youth workforce development team, many forms of artistic talent and hard work were celebrated.

Arts for Healing Workshop at Vassar-Warner Home

In December, The Art Effect’s MADLab students helped facilitate an incredible Arts for Healing workshop with residents of the Vassar-Warner Home. The workshop involved two sessions: “Abstract Painting” and “Intergenerational Illustration”. In the first session, residents experimented with abstract painting techniques; in the second, The Art Effect’s Media, Art, Design Lab (MADLab) students listened to stories of residents’ favorite holiday memories, then went on to illustrates these memories into a picture book holiday gift for each resident to keep (check out the book below)!

Expressing themselves through the soothing power of painting, the residents translated powerful emotions into a visual medium. Unexpected choices were an integral parts of this process; mistakes were transformed into poignant works of art.

When the workshop finished, 100% of participants reported a “strengthened sense of self” and 75% of participants said their stress level decreased and sense of optimism increased.

MADLab students spoke one on one with residents during the “Intergenerational Illustration” workshop. Each resident shared a favorite holiday memory and the students used the skills they’d cultivated in the MADLab program to bring this memory to life with unique illustrations.

Classic winter experiences like building snowmen or gathereing with family for a special meal were included, as well as distinctive memories like the first snowfall on a farm or a special holiday trip on a train. Each story was rendered in a student’s unique style, then compiled in a book which was gifted to residents. The book can be viewed online.

Whether the Vassar-Warner Home residents created their own paintings or shared their stories with MADLab students to generate collaborative works of art, The Art Effect’s Art for Healing workshop is now yet another holiday memory to be cherished! Learn more about The Art Effect’s Arts for Healing program here.

Big Read Workshops with The Art Effect

The Art Effect and Poughkeepsie Public Library collaborated in this year’s 2022 Big Read workshops at Poughkeepsie High School and local libraries. 97 participants read the book selected for 2022: Little Monsters by Kelly Link. Painting, animation, and stop motion workshops inspired by the book took place at Poughkeepsie High School, as well as the Straatsburg and Millbrook libraries. Synthesizing literary analysis, media arts, and social-emotional learning, residency participants explored the book’s themes, as well as their own thoughts and responses, through visual mediums. Learn more about residencies with The Art Effect here.

Students at Poughkeepsie High School completed a project called “Animating Monster Metaphors.” They read the short story The Cinderella Game and discussed the use of monsters as a metaphor for emotions that can be difficult to talk about. Over the course of the eight-day residency, students designed “monster” characters based on their own fears, anxieties, and emotions, then scripted, animated, and edited narrative shorts on the subject. Some shorts featured completely digital imagery, while others utilized collage or drawing techniques. But in each finished product, students confronted and ultimately overcame their emotional “monsters”.

Patrons practice abstract painting techniques at Straatsburg Library.

At the Big Read workshop at Straatsburg Library patrons of all ages selected passages from the short stories “The Wrong Grace”, “The Faery Handbag”, and “The Specialist’s Hat”. They then depicted the moods and tones of these stories on paper with acrylic paint. Participants learned mark-making, color-mixing, and the use of abstract techniques to capture deep emotions. One participant commented, “{This workshop} encouraged creativity and stimulated imagination by giving tools to create without overwhelming people, and created a comfortable environment.”

Another workshop took place on November 9th at Millbrook Library, where Pretty Monsters stimulated conversation among patrons about how monsters can be metaphors for everyday problems and issues. Workshop participants collaborated on a stop-motion animated short about a problem everyone faces– fear of judgment. In a single session, they visually represented this fear and imagined a narrative about it– going through all steps of the stop-motion filmmaking process, from concept to execution to post-production. Teen Program Coordinator Risa Pomersiig said, “Thank you so much for running the Big Read program… It was informative and fun… a really wonderful experience.”

View the finished animation Eyes of Judgment here!