Mixed Media Pattern Making: A Look Inside This Week's Camp

What your camper is about to make — and why we think it matters.

What if a pattern wasn't made of fabric at all?

That's the question we're putting in front of our campers this week. Not as a riddle with one right answer — as an invitation. By Friday, every child in our studio will have taken that question somewhere completely their own.

This week is called Mixed Media Pattern Making, and here's the truth: some of our campers have done this before, and some haven't. What matters this week isn't experience — it's what each camper brings to the table. Literally.

So, what is a pattern? Most people picture stripes or florals — a repeat printed on fabric. That's one kind. But the pattern we're making this week is the other kind: the blueprint. The piece you cut and build from with your own hands, like a recipe — except instead of dinner, it becomes wearable art. Our campers will start with a flat tissue pattern piece and end the week with a finished, three-dimensional look they built themselves.

Which brings us to mixed media. Simply put: more than one material in the same piece. Paper and fabric and paint, all at once. Newspaper and stitching. Denim and house paint. Bottle caps and embroidery. If your camper has ever made a collage, they've already done mixed media — they just didn't know it had a name yet.

Here's the big idea we're handing them: combine materials that don't usually go together, and design something nobody else could make. Not "make something pretty." Not "follow the steps." Make something that could only have come from them — their choices, their combinations, their eye.

To get the creative gears turning, we'll look at real inspiration together — ink illustration built up in maximalist layers, construction that deliberately breaks the rules, garments built from found materials, portraits made of paper and textile instead of paint. We will ask: what's possible here?

Underneath all of it is why we do this work at all. We transform waste into wonder. Every scrap, every found object, every "that doesn't go together" combination is proof that creativity doesn't need permission or perfect materials. And just as important: artistic freedom is a human right — every camper gets to make the call on their own piece, every time.

So what's actually on the table this week? Think of it as a menu, not a list: paper, fabric scraps, found objects, stitch, collage, print. Campers will be encouraged to reach for combinations they wouldn't normally try — that's where the interesting work happens.

As the week goes on, we'll be raising the bar — gently, and on purpose. Three questions will guide that: Story — does it say something about you? Skill — did you push a technique further than before? Surprise — is there a choice in it nobody expected? We're looking for growth.

We always start the same way: your dreams. Your imagination. Your ideas. That's where we begin. Not with a perfect plan — with curiosity, grit, kindness and the freedom to see what happens and the encouragement always to be yourself.

We can't wait to see what they make.

— Priscila & the Columbus Fashion Academy team