This blog is a resource for educators and parents who wish to explore the world of art with the children in their lives. Have fun, create and learn something new--together!
Last Thursday I had the pleasure of hanging out and creating jewelry with a few lovely students at Amherst Middle School. We learned some basics of jewelry design and construction and students were able to go home with duct tape earrings, beaded earrings, a glass bead bracelet, and a shrink art necklace. While they were creating, they were learning how to use jewelry-making tools and jewelry findings.
While these pieces are easy to make, they form the foundation of basic jewelry-making skills students can use to make a number of fabulous pieces! Hopefully they are inspired to create some lovely pieces at home!
And here's the link to the tutorial we used as inspiration for our duct tape earrings--I'm now sporting a pair of rainbow tie-dyed feather earrings my son made me! :-) *LOVE*
Thank you so much to all of the parents who came out the week before school to attend my workshop on creativity--Reimagining Creativity: Building Creative Confidence in Your Kids!
First off, all of these people are incredibly brave! I described what we would be doing in the emails I sent out, but I was deliberately vague--I didn't want to spoil the fun we'd be having or have people feel it was going to go a particular way since I wanted to leave a bit of wiggle room so that I could adapt the workshop to what the attendees needed.
All of the attendees knew me and knew I am an art teacher, so there was some intimidation that they'd be making art in front of me and others (whom they did not know). They were afraid they'd be judged! How scary is that!? But they showed up anyway!
We did create some art, but that is because sharing art is how I express myself creatively. The main goal was to get the grownups thinking about how THEY are creative (everyone is, you know!) and how THEY could apply that creativity in their lives and in their homes, jobs, etc.
It was a success, and I can't wait to hear how these parents use the insight they gained in their lives with their kiddos.
Here's what some attendees said:
"What a wonderful evening! Thank you! I know you think I came for you… & I did… but I came to learn too, because I know you have so much to offer. As you know, I don't consider myself 'artsy,' but from you I learned that is not the same as 'creative.' Thank you."--P.D., Merrimack, NH "Tonight was so great! Thank you for putting this together!"--J.M., Pepperell, MA. "Excellent job tonight! It was so much fun! I am so glad I know you. Thank you so much."--S.H., Amherst, NH
Here's The final installment of this series on encouraging artsy times when you and your children have a day off. I've encouraged you to gather supplies and ideas and let your children play with and explore the art supplies. I also shared a couple of art projects we've been doing in our house during our down times. Now, the final piece to the puzzle: YOU! 4. Stop Cleaning The House and DO ART WITH YOUR KIDS! Specifically: Origami! I constantly struggle with this one. I have a to-do list a mile long and when the kids are home, it seems as if I clean even more! When they are home on a snow day, I am mopping up puddles of melted snow, picking up four sets of snow boots (again and again!), hanging up snow pants to dry, making cocoa, getting snacks (again?!?), etc. etc. As the day goes on, I find myself getting more and more frustrated as I try to "get stuff done" while the children vie for my attention. So, my advice for you: stop cleaning and play. Play dominoes, build a snow fort, make a yummy treat, sit and do a craft. The dishes will wait, the laundry will be there later. You'll be spending time with your kids and, let me tell you a secret, after you spend some time with them they MAY even run off and play and you'll have time to fold the laundry. Maybe. If not, you'll relax ad have a good time for a few minutes which is better than yelling "go play!" and fuming while you do the dishes. One type of art that is great for mommy and me time (with Kinders on up) is origami. I have done origami with all three of my boys and it is fun and addicting! You don't have to have any special paper (you can use copy paper cut into a square) and you can look up directions online for all sorts of awesome ideas! If you are interested in books on origami, your local library will probably have a few and we like the "Origami Kit" with three books from Dover Publications that I featured in this post.
I've seen this kit at AC Moore and Michael's. It is seriously the best!
So great for a holiday or birthday gift!
Here's Number 1 Son creating a sailboat and fish mobile.
Check out the post for that here.
And here's a lovely wreath that will get you thinking "Spring!"
even if it is still 20 degrees and snowing in your area! Check out the post for this here.
I also picked up this great flipbook by Toshie Takahama called, "Quick and Easy Origami" that is absolutely great! My six-year-old can make many of the projects in the book himself, and we've spent lots of time making dozens of pieces from this book. The kit on Amazon comes with paper so you are ready-to-go when it arrives. Another lovely gift idea!
Some ideas to go beyond just making random pieces of origami:
Make a scene with different pieces of origami glued to a background. Take the little doggie from Takahama's book and glue it to construction paper and add some grass, some origami flowers, an origami bird in the sky, an origami fish swimming in a paper pond--use your imagination to create an entire scene made from origami elements. How about making a spring scene?
Make tiny origami, or HUGE origami. Origami is created from a square of paper. Once you find a project you like, try using different size squares of paper. We made a samurai hat from a traditional piece of origami paper and then used all different sizes of squares to see how big we could make the samurai hats--could we make one to fit our teddy bear? Yes! We used a 24" square to start with. Could we make a samurai hat to fit us? Yes! We used a square cut from a double-wide sheet of newspaper. Use newspaper or wrapping paper to create the largest squares you can and fold away! And how small ca you go? Can you make a piece of origami from a 2" square? How about a 1" square of paper? Have fun experimenting.
Make an origami gift. Some of your experiments from above, are great for gifts. Little origami creations make great decorations on cards (send one to grandma to let her know you are thinking about her) and super huge origami can be a gift in itself! Make a wearable samurai hat for your friend--just fold up a super-huge piece of paper into a hat and paint it with tempera paints. Awesome! For a more sophisticated gift, you can use beautifully patterned origami papers to make art that can be mounted on mat board and given to mom, dad, grandma, or a grad for a special occasion. How unique! Here are some great picts of how the samurai hats and shirts can be used to create great pieces of art. I'm planning on making the samurai hat one for my sister for her birthday--I think it looks just like a quilt and she's an avid quilter.
Amaze your children and make origami from money! Yep, there's nothing like grabbing a dollar bill from dad, folding it into a tiny button-down shirt, and then giving it to your kid. Not only are they amazed at your coolness of being able to make origami from money, they think it's great they tricked dad out of a dollar bill--hee hee! This kept my kiddos busy while we waited for dinner to be served at a restaurant and they had me leave the waitress' tip that way. Just do a search online and you'll see all sorts of ideas for making little creations from money.
Have fun and enjoy this time with your children! I hear this time goes by quickly--it's time to make memories...
This past week's after school art class was great! We were able to get two art projects done in the allotted time and some children had a few minutes to sketch. Both of these projects are fun and colorful and easy to do. I've done them with preschoolers up through fourth graders and everyone seems to enjoy it! This time, I was able to show the children artwork from each artist and link the lessons to children's books about the artists. If you haven't checked out these books, please do! The first project is: Handy Andy's inspired by the blog Artolazzi.
For this project, I shared the book: "Uncle Andy's," by James Warhola. What a lovely book! This is written by a nephew of Andy Warhol and is told from the child's perspective. James Warhola talks about visiting his Uncle Andy at his studio and all of the interesting projects and people he sees there. I really like this book. It is interesting to look at the illustrations and see all of the fun details. The book also reminds me that children are like little sponges, soaking up info and inspiration from their environments. Warhola speaks about how inspiring it was to be surrounded by all of the art objects and artwork in his Uncle Andy's studio and being able to see the process his Uncle went through to create his art (note: I brought in one of the Marilyn Monroe series of paintings for the children to view--it had repetition and color that I wanted to highlight with the project below).
Handy Andys
I saw this project on the blog: Artolazzi and loved it. I changed it a bit to use bright papers instead of paint for the backgrounds to speed things up a bit. I used a bright pad of paper I bought at the local copy store (Staples) which was 50 sheets of 11" x 14" paper (5 bright colors) for about $5.
Supplies Needed:
1 sheet of bright paper 11" x 14" for the background
2 5.5"x 7" rectangles of bright paper (different colors than your background)
4 5.5"x 7" rectangles of bright paper (assorted brights so that the hands cut from these papers are different than the backgrounds)
Pencil
Scissors
Glue stick
Black tempera paint
Paper plate for palette
Directions:
1. I had the students select one 11" x 14" piece of bright paper for their background. In the above image, my background piece is yellow.
2. I then had them select two rectangles (5.5" x 7" each) these needed to be different than their background paper. These were glued down to the background so that it appeared the background is divided into four sections. Use the photo as a guide. In my example, I used a blue and a green rectangle.
3. I then handed out stacks of four rectangles (each 5.5" x 7") of assorted colors that had been stapled together. I had the students trace their hands onto the stack and cut through all four at once with their scissors to create four identical hand shapes. Remove the staples, arrange onto the background and glue down using the glue stick. Glue the fingers down well so they don't curl off of the page.
4. Once everything was glued down well, I had the students come over to the printing station where they could dip their hands into the black tempera I had placed in foam plates and then print onto their backgrounds over each of the hand prints.
They came out great! The children had lots of fun with these and the bright colors really created an eye-popping display! These would be so nice for Mother's Day or Father's Day and they didn't take any time at all (maybe 30 minutes from start to finish).
This is a great project that uses only a couple of supplies (and a bit of patience) to create a piece that transforms from "ho-hum" into "WOW!" This is a great way to illustrate how various lines can show movement.
Horizontal lines are sleepy and calm. Vertical lines are strong and stand still, but diagonal lines seem to slide and move, bringing our eye from one side of the page to the other and then "whoosh!" off the page! We start off this exercise by using the ruler to create a series of diagonal lines and color them in with markers. Then, we cut the piece up and fan the strips out and create another type of line...a swirly, curving line that also shows movement! This is also a nice op-art activity. You can use complementary colors for your diagonal lines or a full rainbow of color. Experiment and enjoy the process!
Movement With Lines
Supplies Needed:
One sheet of white construction paper, 9"x12"
One sheet of black construction paper, 12"x18"
Ruler
Pencil and eraser
Markers, assorted colors
Glue sticks
Directions:
1. Draw a series of diagonal lines on the white construction paper. You can draw three smaller lines going across the page or fill the space with lines. Both look great, in my opinion.
2. Color in the diagonal lines using markers.
This is the "Before" Photo
3. Flip the page over and divide the page into twenty-four 1/2" wide strips. Use your ruler for this and try to be as precise as possible. BEFORE you cut the strips apart, number them on the back from 1-24 at one end (the same end of the strips for all numbers).
This photo is kind of hard to see, but it shows all of the strips
numbered on the back at the same end.
Now, this is where it gets a little bit tricky. I'm sure you can do this many ways, but I made three of these and I finally landed on this way of doing it.
4. Cut out the strip marked #12. Put glue on the back and glue it on your black construction paper background in the middle, like this:
Strip # 12 glued on in the center
of the black paper (hold the black
construction paper vertically)
5. Now you can cut strip #11 out and put glue on the back of it. Overlap the left edge of the strip over the left edge of the previous strip (in this case, strip #12), fanning the right edge out slightly (about 1/2"). Repeat with strips 10-1 (working away from you) until you get through strip #1, forming a nice curve with the strips. Use the photo as a guide.
7. Once you have finished gluing down strip #1. Place glue on the back of strip #13 and overlap the right edge of the strip over the right edge of strip #12, fanning the left edge down slightly (about 1/2").
8. Repeat with strips 14-24 until you get through all the strips, forming a nice curve in the opposite direction with the strips. Use the picture as a guide.
It is OK if the ends of the strips continue off the edge of the page. You can leave them that way or trim them to the edge of the black construction paper.
This project is good for the older child since they may be more tolerant of cuting up their artwork and transforming it into something else. Also, they are more capable of handling the precise measuring and cutting this project needs in order to be successful. It took me three times to get all the strips to fit on the black construction paper properly. But I really liked all of the other attempts I made too. It's an experiment, so don't get too stressed!
For my after school Modern Art class I wanted to try something a bit different. I usually do a Kandinsky project inspired by Art Projects For Kids using watercolor and crayon resist, but I thought I'd mix it up a bit and try not only experimenting with color, but also with media. I had each child create two 3" squares using the following media:
watercolor and crayon resist
collage
colored pencils
collage (using magazine pages)
This piece was created by a 13-year-old student I teach private lessons to.
Feel free to vary the amount of squares depending on the
age and ability of your students. This project looks great with
four, six, eight, nine, twelve squares, or more!
The lesson is perfect as an introductory project when getting to know students or as an assessment project. Originally, Kandinsky created his circle compositions as color studies, so we can too!
I set up four stations in the room, explained how to use the media at each station properly and then let them go. I timed about 10-15 minutes per station (they created 2 squares at each station). About two-thirds of the students were able to create the necessary squares in the allotted time. I think I would break this into two class sessions in the future and have them do watercolor and marker the first week and collage and colored pencil the next. Or, maybe have students just do one square each (for a total of 4 squares).
The finished pieces were glued to black construction paper. Lovely color and media studies! Thanks, Mr. Kandinsky!
Kandinsky Media Study
This project is designed to be worked in four stations. I'll describe each individually...
Station 1: Markers
Supplies Needed:
3" squares of marker paper (marker doesn't bleed)
Pencil with eraser
Markers (We used Sharpies)
Newspaper to protect workspace
Directions:
1. Use pencil to write your name on the back of two squares.
2. Draw concentric circles on the paper using pencil. The circle can stay within the box or go beyond the box slightly.
3. Color the rings in with various colors of markers.
Marker Example (Using Sharpies)
Station 2: Colored Pencils
Supplies Needed:
3" squares of drawing paper
Pencil with eraser
Colored Pencils
Directions:
1. Use pencil to write your name on the back of two squares.
2. Draw concentric circles on the paper using pencil. The circle can stay within the box or go beyond the box slightly.
3. Color the rings in with various colors of colored pencils. You can use light or heavy pressure to vary the intensity of the colors.
Colored Pencil Example
Station 3: Collage
Supplies Needed:
3" squares of drawing paper
Pencil with eraser
Ruler
Scissors
Glue stick
Magazines or paper scraps
Directions:
1. Use pencil to write your name on the back of two squares.
2. Cut a 3" square from a solid-color section of a magazine picture. Adhere to the 3" square of drawing paper.
3. Cut rings of various colors of magazine paper and glue to your squares.
Collage Example
(Using Magazine Paper)
Station 4: Watercolor Resist
Supplies Needed:
4" squares of watercolor paper (note the larger size)
Masking tape
Piece of cardboard
Pencil with eraser
Crayons
Watercolor paints & brush
Water bucket, paper towels
Directions:
1. Use pencil to write your name on the back of two squares.
2. Tape the two squares to the cardboard or to the table. Tape a 1/4" border all around the squares--this will keep the paper from buckling as it dries.
3. Draw concentric circles on the paper using pencil. The circle can stay within the box or go beyond the box slightly.
4. Using a crayon, trace the pencil lines, pressing hard enough to leave a nice, thick pencil line.
5. Color the rings in with various colors of paint. You may not want to paint the rings in order since painting two sections that touch could cause the paint to bleed.
6. Let dry thoroughly. Trim squares to 3 inches.
Watercolor Example
To finish:
Mount all squares, touching, in a pleasing arrangement, onto black construction paper. Most squares will adhere nicely using a glue stick, but the watercolor paper may need tacky glue to stay glued down properly. Enjoy!
