Creative Family Fun

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Art Activities

Art Lessons: Watercolor Resist Circles

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When we worked on our The Little House pictures, Lizzie told me that she wanted to learn to make pretty pictures.

I took this as a personal challenge to come up with some “art lessons” for her to give her some of the tools needed to produce beautiful artwork.

I’m not a trained art teacher. In fact, I haven’t had an art class since high school. So, I’m just coming up with some ideas in the hopes that it helps her learn that art can come in many forms and also give her some opportunities to produce something pretty.

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For our first lesson, I thought we would tackle watercolor resist with crayons.

We talked a little bit about primary and secondary colors as we chose the two colors we would use for this project – once primary one secondary.

She chose red for her primary and purple for her secondary color. In addition, I set out several things we could use as stencils to create circles.

I used water color paper again for this project because Lizzie can be a bit heavy handed when it comes to watercolors. So, the thicker paper, the better!

We started out by tracing circles all over our paper. It helps to be heavy handed with the crayons.

Once the circles were done, we painted over the entire paper with red paint.

Lizzie wasn’t quite satisfied with her picture as it was and thought it needed something a bit extra – hand prints. Hmmmm… it looks a bit (no, a lot) like a prop for a horror movie, but she was pleased.

And, of course, I’m not going to tell her it’s not suitable, because one important lesson I’m trying to teach her is that there is no right or wrong with art. Art is what you make of it.

I was creating right along side Lizzie and used orange for my crayon choice and here are our finished products. They didn’t quite turn out how I expected, but they turned out well nonetheless.

Lizzie was done, but I still wasn’t satisfied.

So, after bedtime, I tackled the project again. After all, I felt like if I was going to share this with you, I should at least figure out what would work better.

This time I reversed the color order. I made the circles with the primary color, red, and used orange as my water color choice.

I thinned the paint out more and tried again. Voila, the look I was going for! If you’re going to give this project a try, use thick crayon lines and thin watercolor.

Here they all are side by side. They all turned out wonderful, although I’m still not sure about those hand prints!

Here’s my question for you: Do you have any suggestion for art lessons for Lizzie? What other techniques should I show her?

Painting on Wet Paper

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I was recently inspired to pick up a copy of the book Science Arts: Discovering Science Through Art Experiences (Bright Ideas for Learning) by MaryAnn Kohl at the library. It was a well-used copy and it’s no wonder. The book is full of fun, interesting and creative activities designed to combine science concepts with art. There are projects for all ages of kids. In fact, I don’t think you could be too old to have fun with this book.

The project we decided to tackle first was painting on wet paper, which was designed to demonstrate the concept of diffusion.I waited until AJ was napping before starting the project. On hindsight, even at 2, she could have had fun with this project.

The first step was wetting your paper.I had watercolor paper on hand, so that’s what we used. The book suggested construction paper, but almost any paper would work as long as it wasn’t too thin (you don’t want it to disintegrate when wet).

We then placed the paper on a tray and got to work. You’ll want your paper on something that will not soak up the water (cookie sheet, tray, etc.).Lizzie picked out a couple of colors of tempura paint and I thinned them out quite a bit with water. I wanted it to be thin enough that she could easily drip it onto her paper.

She dripped and smeared the paint while we talked a bit about diffusion. I loved having the example of the spreading drops of paint.It was quite fascinating to see the paint spread out so quickly. Lizzie had a lot of fun exploring her wet paper.

In the end, we had a really cool piece of art. We’ve also got several more projects marked in the book to try. Do the ideas of baked drawings, invisible designs, floating sculptures and shake pictures tempt you to pick up a copy of Science Arts? I hope so!

Apple Stamping…

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We did another item from our Fall Bucket List recently – apple stamping.I set up the project by cutting a couple of apples in half. I cut one lengthwise, so we could get the apple shape. The other I cut crosswise, so we could have circles with the pretty star shape in the middle.

I grabbed a few of our craft sticks and stuck them in the apples to make the stamps easier to handle. After pouring out a couple of colors of paint, we were ready to go.

The girls were quite excited to see this; their patience barely held on to let me take a few seconds to snap this photo. (Can you see the little finger peeking off to the side?)

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And, they were off! If you’ve never tried this project before, I’d greatly encourage it. All it takes is a couple of apples and some paint.The girls loved the novelty of using food to stamp and had a lot of fun making the different shapes and even mixing the colors.

Both were able to work on this project without any help from me.

In the end, we had a lot of fun and some great prints.I’m planning on getting out my clear contact paper and turning these into autumn placemats. We’ll have enough for everyone in the family!

Have you tried apple stamping before?

A Girl and a Glue Gun

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Yes, I did hand Lizzie a glue gun and no, I was not insane at the time.I had been thinking about the idea ever since I read this post by Teacher Tom. I knew Lizzie was capable and I also knew she was careful enough to handle it. I also knew that this activity would work best if we tried it while AJ was napping. I’m definitely not ready to help a 2-year-old with a glue gun!

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We had checked out the book Hannah’s Collections by Marthe Jocelyn at the library recently. This is a story about a girl and her many collections of various odd and ends. She collected popsicle sticks, old stamps, feathers and just about everything that captured her interest. In the end, she made a sculpture with her collections.Lizzie was very interested in the book and the sculpture. I knew she would love to make one of her own. And luckily, this weekend provided the perfect opportunity when a very tired AJ decided to take a nice, long nap!

I got out the glue gun and we pilfered through all of our craft supplies we’ve been stockpiling. It was time to make our own sculpture!

Before we started, we had a lesson on glue gun safety.I showed her the parts of the glue gun that got really hot, the places she could touch safely, and how to operate the glue gun. And yes, in case you were wondering, I was by her side the entire time!

She had great fun gluing and piecing together her sculpture.She learned that hot glue dries quickly, so you should know what you’re going to glue down before applying the glue.

She learned the best way to apply the glue and how best to stick down your pieces. There were times when she wanted me to apply the glue and other times when she wanted to give it a go herself.

In the end, we had two great sculptures and we also had a lot of fun together!

I would have no problem letting Lizzie use the glue gun again. She had fun, she felt grown-up and learned about the amazing things you can do when you learn to use certain crafting tools responsibly!

Tape Resist Painting

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To be quite honest, I debated whether or not to post this project because as you’ll see, it didn’t quite turn out for us.

But, as had been the overriding theme during our art week, it was all about the process and not the end product.

We decided to tackle tape resist painting as our final project of the week.

I gave the girls pieces of painter’s tape and plain printer paper. I also provided two colors of paint. I wanted two colors that would mix well, so I chose red and yellow.

As you can see, AJ decided to tape her paper down to the table! I finally convinced her to try to stick the tape in the middle of the paper.

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Lizzie decided to make a box like shape with her tape. Then, they both set off to painting. Red was quite the popular color and Lizzie painted and painted until her paper was covered.

We let the paint dry for a little while and then attempted to peel off the tape. This would be the point that the project didn’t quite go as planned.

As you can see, the paint bled through a little and if you look at the wad of tape at the top of the photo, you’ll see that it pulled off some of the paper.

I think if we tried this again, I would use a heavier paper such as card stock instead of the copy paper. That should definitely solve the problem of the peeling paper.

Oh, and can I make a confession here? AJ slapped a little bit of paint on the paper and moved on to more interesting things… so, I decided to finish her project. I like to paint and I love art projects!

Lizzie’s project turned out really well, even though we did need to tape up a couple of holes. The important part was that she had fun and enjoyed the process immensely!

The lesson learned for me – it doesn’t have to be perfect as long as you enjoy it.