Local children have been tapping into their creative sides as City Ceramics hosts its annual summer art camp, held in the old Dallas Academy School on Selma Avenue.

With endless amounts of paint, ceramics, colored pencils and a host of other art materials in their reach, more than 60 children have launched into a world of creativity as the second session of the camp began Monday.

Linda Oliver, who helps with the camp each year along with several other volunteers, said it’s great to see the children engage in artistic crafts, especially during the summertime when they don’t have the responsibilities of homework and other school activities.

“They rotate through different stations about every 30 minutes,” Oliver explained while helping a few children braid ropes out of small cloth clippings. “They always seem to have a lot of fun. Some have been coming since they were real little.”

Donald Meyer, who also volunteers with the summer camp, said the program began in the late 1990’s and since then has grown stronger in numbers.

“A lot of these kids really look forward to this. Most of them have been coming for years, and it’s a really great camp for what it costs,” Meyer said. “They all seem to have a lot of fun.”

Local artist Charlie Lucas helped some of the older art camp participants in making a group collage. Kayleigh Etheridge and Kirstin Harris boasted wide smiles as they helped Lucas with the large collage piece.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Etheridge said of the camp. “We get to make a lot of different crafts, like this one.”

The first camp session was held in June, followed by a session in July. Both camps were immediately booked to capacity, Meyer said.

Candi Duncan of City Ceramics said spots in the art camp always fill up quickly, as many children look forward to attending each summer.

“They always have a great time,” Duncan said while helping campers with a project that involved Mod Podge. “A lot of them come back every year.”