laughpaintcreate

Cupcake Collage

2011-09-25T11:42:00.000-05:00

I have been creating all sorts of cakes recently with children at the OKCMOA to celebrate the new exhibition, Poodles & Pastries (and other important matters): New Paintings by Franco Mondini-Ruiz. We are taking inspiration from his paintings and sculptures to create our own unique works using different mediums.

Yesterday we focused on collages in a class for 3-5 year olds and in Drop-in Art where children of all ages come to create.

In the class we talked about sweet treats, especially cupcakes! We visited the gallery to view the new works and read the book, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff.

We shared our favorite paintings and talked about our favorite type of cupcakes.With all of this information in mind we headed back to the classroom to cut, tear and glue our own cupcake creations.

We went over our steps but I have reminders on the board.

Supplies are ready to go:

Tables were supplied with baskets full of scrap paper, tissue paper, sequins, hole punches, glue sticks, yarn, scissors, background paper, 3 pre-cut cupcake bottoms and 3 icing tops. I explained that the tops for the icing could be covered and decorated or used as a template to trace on scrap paper and then the scrap paper could be cut out and used.

The children were instructed to decorate all 3 cupcakes differently. I think we succeeded! So much fun!

First ground our cupcakes with a semi circle. Then glue cupcake bottoms:

Now we start to top our cupcakes and decorate our papers!

You will need:
-9x12 heavy paper for background (we used tagboard)
-Various scrapbook papers
- Brown cardstock for cupcake bottoms (I pre-cut)
-White cardstock for icing tops (I pre-cut)
-Tissue paper
-Scissors
-Hole punches
-Glue Sticks
-Yarns, sequins,other embellishments

Here are some of our finished creations! Are you hungry yet? :)

Big Bugs

2011-08-21T11:08:00.005-05:00

I created "Big Bugs" with children of all ages at the OKCMOA recently for Drop-in Art. We focused on symmetry, line and pattern.

First we looked at examples on the board of symmetry. We also looked at bugs and parts of a bug's body which includes a head, thorax and abdomen.

To get started we fold our large drawing paper in half and use a black oil pastel to draw HALF of our bug's body. We draw the body parts and add other things like legs, wings, antennae, patterns and designs to create our own unique bugs.

We FOLD the paper closed and rub all over our design. This will transfer the oil pastel using the heat of our hands to the other side of the paper and give us perfect vertical symmetry. Now we go over those light lines with our black oil pastel to make it complete.

Now we jump into paints. For this project we used Crayola washable tempera paints. The kids really enjoyed watching their creations come to life through color! This project is very adaptable for different ages.

You will need:
-Big white drawing paper
-Black oil pastel
-Tempera paints, brushes, washout bowls
-Examples of bugs and symmetry

Farm Land

2011-08-08T13:28:00.006-05:00

Little ones ages 3-5 years old joined me at the OKCMOA for a fun filled class about farms. We were taking a look at farms because of the current exhibition, 1934: A New Deal for Artists. We began the class by taking a look at a small slideshow I put together of real farm landscape photos. We looked at the layers of color and line.

We also talked about farms and why the land on farms is so important. We talked about crops and our favorite grown foods.

To create our beautiful farm landscapes we began by cutting a piece of paper into 4 pieces.

Now we use a paintbrush to paint the pieces yellow, green and brown.

The top section of our paper is the sky and we painted our sky blue with cotton balls and used those cotton balls to make white clouds in the sky.

We visited the gallery while our paint dries. We sat in front of farm paintings and I read the book, Mrs. McNosh and the Great Big Squash.

We return to the classroom and use our glue sticks to put our crops together on a piece of colored construction paper. I compared it to a puzzle, getting the pieces to match up. Now we finish our farm land by adding some details with more paint and q-tips. We add lines and dots and finish them up!

You will need:
-White paper
-Tempera paints/brushes
-Q-tips
-Cotton balls
-Construction paper
-Scissors
-Glue stick

City Prints

2011-08-07T17:02:00.005-05:00

Children of all ages joined me recently at the OKCMOA to learn about printmaking. This fun art project had us painting and printing our hearts out.

First we used watercolors to create the backdrop for our cities. We painted the top half of our paper with warm colors to represent the sky and the bottom half with cool colors to represent water.

We set our papers aside to dry and move to our next step.

Now we draw our city design on printing foam. We used a pencil to press firmly into the foam leaving the valleys that will be our lines when we print.

Now cut your city outline out of the foam and get ready to print. We used Speedball ink to load our brayers and spread a thin about of ink on our city.

We line up our city on the top half of our watercolor paper and press all over the backside of the foam. Carefully lift to reveal your first print.

Now we use the same piece of foam without re-inking and press to create a print on the blue portion or reflection of our city. Carefully lift and you are finished! Make as many prints as you like!

You will need:
-Scratch-Foam Printing board
-White paper
-Watercolors, brushes, wash bowl
-Pencil
-Scissors
-Printing ink, brayer and plexiglass

Tabletop Puppet Show

2011-08-02T12:00:00.007-05:00

So, the favorite project from my Elmer's Kid's Craft Camp were the tabletop puppet shows. The kids really enjoyed making these fun little people all put behind a little theater that sits on the table in front of the performer.

We started with our Elmer's Bi-Fold Foam core board. I used my X-Acto to precut a square opening on the prefolded side of the board.

This should be done by an adult or with adult supervision as those blades are way sharp and I have cut my own fingers on them several times!

Now with each each of our theaters being cut and ready we use our X-Acto scallop and zig-zag scissors to cut and use our Elmer's Craft Bond sticks to glue down different papers. We do not paper over the pre-cut fold on the board because we need that to fold back when we are finished.

To add a little sparkle to our theater we use the most awesome pens- the CraftBond Gel Pens to write and color. Then we use a few dots of Elmer's glue and add various sequins. These are set aside to dry while we create little paper puppets.

We used our gel pens again to draw our characters. We used different colors of cardstock and glued them together with the Craftbond Glue dots and Tape. We attached a little craft stick to the bottom of each character and finished with some Elmer's 3D Glittle glue. Oh yeah, who doesn't love glitter glue!?

When everything was dry we turned our theater over and used the CraftBond Tape to attach fabric to the back. I recycled and used some of the packaging material Elmer's sent to me but you can use whatever fabric you have on hand!

Now set your theater up on the table and get ready for the show! So much fun!

You will need:
For Puppet Theater:
-Elmer's Bi-Fold foam core board
-X-Acto blade
-X-Acto Scallop and zigzag scissors
-Papers
-Craftbond gel pens
-Elmer's Glue dots, Craftbond glue sticks, tape
-Sequins optional

For characters:
-CraftBond Gel Pens
-Scissors
-Craft Papers
-Glue Sticks
-CraftBond Glue Dots and tape
-Craft Sticks

And the winner is...

2011-07-31T13:01:00.004-05:00

Ms. Wilkinson who commented: Great idea! Thanks!

Congratulations and I will contact you by email!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter and leave such wonderful comments. This was so much fun that I will have to host another giveaway in the near future! Thank you to Elmer's for giving me the opportunity to hold this wonderful camp and for the really cool supplies. I still plan on sharing all the fun we had at our camp. Don't forget, you can find most of the items at many of your local stores. Continue creating, teaching and learning and many thanks for coming by!

Gears!

2011-07-27T19:56:00.004-05:00

This is the lesson plan for a class I was going to teach this weekend but I am doing a mud run and thankfully got another instructor to cover the class for me (Thanks Ms. Amanda!!) The kids love her and I am sure she will add her own creative touch to this class.

Why gears? Well the OKCMOA has an incredible exhibit right now that you might have seen traveling through your town, 1934: A New Deal For Artists. The first part of the exhibit is about industry and what better way to talk about industry than machines and gears!

Gears are fun, they make a lot of things go, just have your kids look at some of their toys. I found some books at our library and this great video.

The first step was some prep work. I actually traced circles of different sizes for each student as they are 3-5 years old. Your students and children can freehand circles or use a template like I did.

Now we cut our circles out. To give our gears teeth we make an even number of little cuts around the circle.
Now we fold back every other tooth.

Set gears aside and prepare background. First we use oil pastels.

Then use a watercolor wash to fill our paper.

Now we use our glue stick to cover the back of our gears and press and hold. You need to use quite a bit of glue and press and hold, hold, hold. I usually tell kids to press, hold and count to five.

Arrange gears over paper and we trimmed a small strip from each side of our final work. We glued down our big piece down on black paper and finished by gluing the strips around the piece with a little space left between the piece and the strips.

That's it! Wish me luck that I don't break a leg at the race! And please don't forget to enter the

Elmer's Giveaway!

For this project you will need:
-Colored cardstock
-White constuction paper
-Black paper for mounting
-Pencils to draw/trace circles
-Glue/gluesticks
-Scissors
-Oil pastels
-Watercolors

Elmer's Giveaway!

2011-07-25T11:16:00.008-05:00

Hello readers! Welcome to my very first giveaway! Let me give you details. I was contacted by Elmer's to see if I would be interested in hosting a Kid's Craft Camp. (YES!) They sent me a really cool box filled with all sorts of goodies to create with.

They also gave me a giftcard to purchase other supplies for the camp. The giftcard is not part of the giveaway but I purchased items you probably already have at home.

I know you all have used Elmer's school glue like I have since you were a child, but did you know about all of their other products? I didn't! This gave us a chance to experiment with new (to me) products and we had a ton of fun.

This week I will be posting projects from my Kid's Craft Camp.

Our first project was creating a puppet show. Details on this project and more all week long!

You can make these fun ideas at home too but it will be a lot more fun if you win this giveaway generously donated by Elmer's to one lucky reader.

The giveaway includes:

1 Adult Craft Kit:
-X-Acto Zigzag and Scallop scissor packs
-X-Acto 8" Scissors
-X-Acto Corner Rounder Punch
-CraftBond Gel Pens
-CraftBond Extra Strength Glue Stick
-CraftBond Tape Runner
-Painters Markers

2 Kid's Craft Kits:
-Mini Bi-Fold Foam Board
-CraftBond Extra Strength Glue Stick
-CraftBond Glue Spots
-Project Poppers Permanent Markers

To Enter:
Pretty simple! Just leave me a comment on this post with your email. (don't forget to avoid getting spammed use spaces and words like: laughpaintcreate at gmail dot com)
For extra chances to win, share this on FB or Twitter and come back here to tell me you did.

P.S. I sure would love to have you follow my blog and be sure to find me on Facebook! :)

Details:
Giveaway ends Friday, July 29th at Midnight est.
Winner will be chosen by Random.org.
I will post winner and contact by e-mail.
Must be a U.S. Resident.
Packaging may differ from what is shown here.

Good Luck and stay tuned for projects from our party!

My Hero and Me

2011-06-29T10:09:00.011-05:00

It has been a really busy summer here. My boys are out of school and we are in a million directions. I am also teaching a little bit at the OKCMOA over the summer and will be doing some outreach programs. I had a wonderful experience last week through the museum and that was working with children through Hearts for Hearing. They had a camp where campers got to experience many of the cool things downtown OKC has to offer. Their theme was heroes and when they asked me to come up with a project idea I had the perfect thing come to mind.

I actually saw this project done as My Teddy Bear and Me. It was a magazine collage with tempera paint project. I really wish I could remember who did this, if you know please post and I will link. I changed it up a bit but loved the idea! The kids did an excellent job as you can see through the works they completed! These kiddos rocked and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to meet all of them and work with them. Thank you Hearts for Hearing!

We talked about heroes and named some that are in our lives. They gave me the names of various people, their parents, family, teachers, doctors and more. They had to pick one to get started.

Workstations are prepped and ready to go.

First we used oil pastels to draw our hero on 10x8 paper. We used a heavy white construction paper. We added details and used a watercolor wash over the top. Set these aside to dry. You can use a hairdryer to speed the process along if needed.

Now we get started on our self portrait. We start by tracing our hand on a piece of construction paper that has been folded in half. When cut this will give us two hands.

Now we cut our head and begin with details like eyes, nose, mouth and hair. I had pre-cut shoulders and paper strips for arms.

Assemble self portrait on 12x18 construction paper. Use glue/gluesticks to attach. Arm strips are placed in an upside down "v" and hands are glued to the ends. (that "v" is covered by the hero painting later) When painting is dry it is glued on a piece of 12x9 construction paper to frame it. That is glued on bottom half of portrait. Arms are brought up and fingertips are glued to the painting to "hold" it.

These turned out amazing. I am going to post a ton of pictures. I can't resist sharing the wonderful work they did!

You will need:
-10x8 white construction paper for painting
-Pacon Multi-cultural paper for skintones
-18x12 colored construction paper for background
-12x9 colored construction paper for framing painting
-colored construction paper for body, arms, portrait
-Scissors
-Glue/Gluesticks
-Oil Pastels
-Watercolors/brushes/washout bowl
-Pencil for tracing hands

D is for Dad

2011-06-19T21:50:00.005-05:00

Happy Father's Day to you! This is a fun project that can be done with any letter of the alphabet. Yesterday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art I created these fun painted collages with children ages 3-5.

It was all about Dad as we sat down to begin our creations. We started with a basic paint palette and used q-tips for brushes. I did this so we didn't have to worry about washing out our brushes.

I explained that we were not making pictures of things because the painting was going to be cut up and glued into something new. We worked on filling our entire 9x12 sheet of white paper with paint.
I should mention that I drew a capital letter "D" on the back of each of the papers. They painted on the blank side.

When the entire sheet was full of paint we let it dry while we took a walk to visit the gallery.

Back in the classroom we used a glue stick to glue down a solid sheet of 9x12 white paper onto a piece of 11x14 black tag board. If the paintings were not completely dry we used a hair dryer to speed it along.

Now the kids turn their papers over and see the letter D. They cut it out and glue it on the white paper. Then they cut many shapes from the remaining painting and glue them down. This was a lot of fun and will be a great present for anyone!

You will need:
-Tempera paints
-Paint brushes or q-tips
-2 pieces of heavy white 9x12 paper
-1 piece of 11x14 black tag board
-scissors
-Glue stick
-**Prep work: draw a large letter of your choice on the backside of one of the white pieces of paper. Older children can do this themselves.

Picasso Collage

2011-05-28T10:54:00.005-05:00

Picasso. You are probably thinking of his paintings. He created many wonderful collage pieces as well. This was the subject matter I shared for Drop-in Art at the OKCMOA a few weeks ago.

First we looked at a few books and examples of Picasso's work.

Work stations were set up with scissors, glue sticks, newsprint and various papers. (I found really great musical note scrapbook paper at Michaels.)

Our works focused on Guitar.

We began by filling our background with paper and then cut a guitar from a larger piece of paper. We glued it on top and added yarn strings, charcoal and other details. Simple and a lot of fun! This project is great to combine with music!

You will need:
-White posterboard or heavy paper to be the background
-Scissors
-Glue sticks
-Yarn
-Charcoal optional
-Scrap papers
-Larger paper for guitar.

Pop Art Handprints

2011-05-23T19:30:00.004-05:00

Little artists ages 15-36 months old gathered with me at the OKCMOA last weekend to explore pop art.

For our creations we focused on our hands. We looked at some books and went into the gallery.

In the classroom everyone had 4 sheets of 8x8 colored cardstock (cut down from 8.5x11) in different colors. I found mine at Michael's Craft Store. We also had 4 smaller pieces of paper that were measured 4.25x5.5 (an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper quartered.) I used the Spectra Fadeless art paper for the small pieces. The sizes can be altered for older children. You might need to allow for larger papers.

The smaller pieces of paper need to be different colors than your larger sheets.

Our first step was to trace the little ones hands on one of the smaller pieces of paper. Stack all the small pieces together and cut the hand shape from the traced hand, giving you four hands that are exactly the same.

We used Crayola construction paper crayons to color our large sheets of paper.

We use a glue stick to glue our paper hands to the center of our larger 8x8 squares.

Now I pass out our sheets of 19x19 poster board. We arrange and glue each of the 8x8 squares onto it.

To finish we use a large flat paint brush to cover the palm of the hand with black tempera paint. We keep our hands very flat and stamp it on top of our cut hands. If it doesn't match up exactly, even better! Stamp your hands 4 times and you are finished!

We made them with white poster board and black poster board. They are both different looks and can be done either way! Enjoy!

You will need:
-Cardstock in 4 colors
-Paper in 4 different colors
-Black paint
-Crayola construction paper crayons
-Scissors
-Glue
-White or black poster board

Here were some of the finished pieces!

Pet Portraits

2011-05-21T21:22:00.005-05:00

Little artists joined me last weekend at the OKCMOA for Pet Portrait fun. We explored the works of George Rodrigue and got busy.

Using Rodrigue as our inspiration allowed the kids to have fun with their works instead of worrying and stressing about making it look exactly like their own pet.

To begin I had the children lightly draw their pet with pencil. We draw BIG and draw the front of our animals. I advised to keep it simple, details could be added later.

Next the students are allowed to choose one color of paint plus black and white (to shade and tint).

They begin filling in their pets and are encouraged to mix the paints to highlight one side and shade the other. Leave any white spots white.

They use a hairdryer to dry their work before outlining the pet with black paint. Now they can also add details.

The work need to be dry again before creating the background.

We broke the background into three parts. The bottom, left and right side. Here is where color comes in. They can use any color except the color of their pet. We use line and pattern to break up the three areas. So much fun.

You will need:
-Student grade watercolor paper
-Tempera paint
-Brushes
-Paint palette
-Wash bowl
-Pencils and erasers
-Hairdryer if you need to speed drying time

In Georgia's Garden

2011-05-17T13:56:00.005-05:00

Creative little ones ages 2-5 joined me today at the OKCMOA to create bright beautiful flowers inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe.

First we looked at some examples from the books I brought with me.

We started by cutting one BIG flower and glued it down on white paper.

Cut or tear details like leaves and glue them down. We cut one more smaller flower and place it in the center.

Next crumple small bits of tissue paper and glue to the center of the flower. Add more details with crayons, torn or cut paper to make it special!

Finish by gluing the entire piece on top of a larger piece of construction paper to create a colorful mat.

You will need:
-White paper
-Construction paper (we used Spectra Fadeless art paper)
-Scrap paper
-Tissue paper
-Scissors
-Glue
-Crayons

Here are some of our creations!

In my neighborhood

2011-05-03T13:46:00.004-05:00

Children enjoyed creating colorful neighborhoods and cities with me at the OKCMOA last weekend for Drop-in Art.

We talked about architecture and our neighborhoods and immediately began to get to work.

Think about what is in your neighborhood: houses, apartment buildings, sky scrapers, dog houses, schools, hospitals, museums, trees, parks, etc.

Cut your buildings from colorful cardstock.

Arrange cut buildings, trees, etc and glue down in three levels.

We use oil pastels to add details to our buildings. Oil pastels can be messy. Don't take too much paper off the pastel at a time and try to keep the back of your hand off the paper to avoid smearing.

So much fun. They are all so different, I love them all!

You will need:
-Cardstock
-Oil Pastels
-Scissors
-Glue sticks
-Pencils and erasers optional

Shape Stampede

2011-04-27T08:14:00.005-05:00

Shapes and Stamping were all the rage last week at Tiny Tuesday at the OKCMOA. I had plenty of supplies for little ones ages 2-5 to stamp their hearts (or squares) out!

This is really simple and fun. I gave the children a few choices for paint color and we used paper plates as our palettes. Their workstations were set up with corrugated cardboard, stickerback foam shapes, big lids from laundry detergent, forks, q-tips and 14x11 white paper.

This was all about experimenting. I gave little instruction and let the kids have fun. First we peeled the paper off our foam shapes and stuck them on the flat side of our corrugated cardboard. We painted the foam shapes and stamped them on our paper. If you don't have cardboard use what you have. I have used wood blocks, floral foam, even gluesticks as stampers.

From here we keep stamping and use some of our other supplies to fill our page. We like to paint the cardboard too as it leaves us with cool stripes!

Laundry detergent lids are great for little hands. Stamp, stamp, stamp...

When one paper was full I replaced it with a new one. We had a great time creating a bright piece of artwork all while learning about shapes!

You will need:
-Heavy white paper
-Tempera paints
-Sticker back foam shapes
-Corrugated cardboard
-Paintbrushes
-Detergent lids
-Fork
-Q-tips
-Paper plate

So much fun! If you create this project feel free to share a photo of your finished piece with me on Facebook! Have a creative day!

Painted Paper Lanterns

2011-04-18T20:52:00.003-05:00

Children ages 3-5 made these beautiful painted lanterns with me at the OKCMOA. We gathered together to take a look at the George Nelson exhibit and read a book under his bubble lamps.

In the classroom we used his lamps as an inspiration and took our paper lanterns a step further by covering them with watercolors.

Paper lanterns are pretty economical and can be purchased online or found in craft stores in a variety of shapes.

Workstations are set up with newsprint, watercolors, brushes, paper towels and washbowls.

Before we paint we talk about painting gently. I have each of the children use their brush without paint on the back of their hand to show me a gentle brushstroke. We are gentle so we don't break through the paper.

I removed the black and brown paint from their options and we get busy.

We also talk about washing our brush between changing colors. We found that sometimes the paint dripped down our lanterns and that looked really neat.

To finish we tied yarn to the top and they were ready to take home to hang up! We had so much fun.

You will need:
-Paper Lantern
-Watercolors
-Brushes

Tick Tock

2011-04-10T17:07:00.004-05:00

Toddlers ages 15-36 months explored architecture and clocks in the George Nelson exhibit at the OKCMOA. A cukoo style clock was the perfect way to tie these two things together. First as architects we constructed a house to hold our bird.

Cardstock was the paper choice and a house was cut with two small doors to open.

We color a small bird and glue a feather to the end. We use an accordian type fold to give our bird pop out action. Glue the bird on the folded paper inside the doors.

Now we Design our clock. Cut a circle and two hands. Use a brad and stick through hands and center of circle. Glue down.

We cut more shapes from scrap paper and glued them down. We finished with Crayola Construction Paper Crayons and added final details. We had a lot of fun and here are some of the creations.

You will need:
-Black tagboard
-Cardstock
-Scissors
-Feathers
-Glue stick
-Contruction paper crayons

Funky Pendants

2011-04-03T16:21:00.006-05:00

What is not to love about these sweet little tiles of artwork that we made into pendants for necklaces and bracelets.

First, I have to mention that every now and then you have a student that on their own free will makes something for you (the teacher). A brother and sister made this bracelet for me and I happily have been wearing it all weekend! So sweet. Very special.

So, Shrinky Dinks pendants were not my original plan. I was going to use cardboard and other items but I got Shinky Dinks paper for my boys at home and thought, this is way more awesome. I have to do this instead and I am glad I did. Old and young had a great time Saturday at the OKCMOA creating these beautiful pendants. Of course the second best part was watching the entire process. Magic!

At home my boys and I started with making little tiles. Here are a few.

This is when I had the epiphany that these had to be made into pendants and that is exactly what I did.

This is the supply table. I talked about how artists and designers need a plan before beginning a project. We used scrap paper to draw our designs first. I pre-cut the Shinky Dink paper into little 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch squares using my Fiskers sliding blade paper cutter.

With a plan in mind students can now either trace by placing the Shrink paper over their designs or freehand it. They use color pencils to fill in their work. Now we use a regular hole punch. One punch for a pendant, two punches for a bracelet. They can trim their work slightly with scissors. Now they give the pieces to me to put in the oven.

I used my toaster oven. I taped off an area on the floor around it and called it the Hot Zone. This way when I opened the oven I could tell the kids to keep behind the red line. I find a visual is always better than just saying, "keep back!" Keep back to where? This lets them know 100%. Behind the red line.

Inside the oven exciting things happened! Curling and wiggling our little pieces shrank before our very eyes!

Our pieces only took about 2 minutes at 350. They are pulled out when the plastic has completely uncurled and layed back flat.

These beauties are cooling off. They take about a minute to be completely cool to touch.

Now we use cord to thread our pendants, add a few beads and voila! SO MUCH FUN!

You will need:
-Shrinking Plastic (I used Shrinky Dinks Brand)
-colored pencils (Prismacolors work best for vibrant pieces)
-Hole Punch
-Scissors
-Cord
-Pony Beads
-Oven or toaster oven

**Always follow directions for the paper you buy.

Weaving Paintings

2011-03-28T09:02:00.010-05:00

I led drop-in art at the OKCMOA this weekend and we had a great time exploring warm and cool colors with watercolors and weaving.

First I gave each student two pieces of watercolor paper. I explained warm colors and cool colors and we looked at examples on the board. Now we get started painting.

We used our yellow, red and orange watercolors to completely cover our first piece of paper.

Then we filled our second sheet of paper with cool colors. Our paint was blue, purple and green.

We used salt and paper towels to add fun effects to our papers while they were wet.

We used a hairdryer to speed up the drying process and then worked on cutting our papers to prepare them for weaving.

Looking at your paper vertical, or portrait style, bring the bottom of the paper to the top making one fold. We made our cuts from the folded end almost to the top of the paper. You do not want to cut all the way through the paper.

You can make straight cuts, wavy cuts, zig-zag, etc.

Now we cut the second sheet of painted paper into strips. You want the strips to be as long as your loom paper so looking at your paper vertically make horizontal cuts creating strips for weaving.

With our paper vertical we weave our strips of paper going over and under our loom paper. The second strip will go opposite of what you did the first time. If your first strip began on the top, your second will start on bottom. As you move along the paper will take on a checkerboard effect.

To finish we mounted our papers horizontal on construction paper that was a little bit bigger than our weavings creating a mat for our piece. I laid out a lot of colors so the kids could see how putting their piece on different colors could really change the overall look of their piece. This was so much fun, here are some of our finished creations!

You will need:
-Student grade watercolor paper
-Watercolors
-Brushes and washout bowls
-Scissors
-Gluesticks
-Salt and textured paper towels (optional)
-Hairdryer for speed dry (optional)

Recycled Gardens

2011-03-23T08:53:00.009-05:00

What better way to greet Spring than with a beautiful garden? Look close at the papers and you will see we used cardboard food boxes, straws and lids to create a fun flower filled garden.

We started by talking about what we might find in a garden. Ground, flowers, fences, bugs and more. Then we took a look at our supplies. The children were excited to find cheerios and spongebob boxes. They were surprised we were using these instead of paper.

I admit, I am a craft supply hoarder. I save all our bright colored food boxes. I just fold them up and put them in a file. I also save lids. The straws are actually new, I didn't recycle used straws! I just thought it was a fun element to include.

Now the kids get busy. They created beautiful and thoughtful works!

You will need:
-Cardboard food boxes
-Blue construction paper
-Glue sticks and Elmer's glue
-Scissors
-Straws and lids

Some of the work we created:

A Pair of Socks

2011-03-14T16:11:00.008-05:00

I was invited by Polly over at Helping Little Hands to participate in a read along she is doing on her blog.

I chose to create a project based on the book, A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy and illustrated by Lois Ehlert.
We could have approached this by coloring or painting but I chose to use collage like Ehlert. This is a great book for learning about shapes and matching. It is great for opening dialogue and discussion between parent and child. We focused on how to make something look the same by using color and pattern.

My boys had fun with this. First we cut socks. The boys each cut four of the same color. I had them make two pairs so we could make a game of it.

We learned how to make two shapes the same. We could use two pieces of paper stacked together and cut once creating two shapes at the same time. We also discovered you can cut out one shape then trace that shape and cut out a second or third and so on. My seven year old preferred cutting once using stacked paper while my five year old preferred the tracing method.

Now we glue our shapes on our socks. The easy way to get toes and heels is to trace the rounded part of our sock on the color of paper we want and cut it out.

Hanging edges? No problem. Just trim them up!

Here are the socks my five year old made.

Here are the socks my seven year old made. He thought his were very tricky because they were so similar.

Here is the last page of the book.

And here are all of our socks! We played several games of matching as we all took turns mixing them up. Thank you Polly! This was fun!

You will need:
-Cardstock
-Scissors
-Gluestick

Get Green

2011-03-14T15:40:00.006-05:00

Little Lassies and Laddies ages 15-36 months gathered around with me at the OKCMOA this weekend to experiment with the color green. We talked about the color green and I gave a little demo on how to make it by mixing blue and yellow paint on a paper plate.

We went through the gallery and found green stripes, circles and squares. In the classroom we used different methods to duplicate some of the same ideas.

Each child started with yellow and blue tempera paint on a paper plate. They used a paintbrush to mix their own shade of green. They applied this color to their papers with the brush. As they began to use up their color I gave everyone a bit of a dark kelly green and white. Now we mix more green.

We used circle sponges, shamrock stamps and detergent lids to stamp our papers. I love to let kids experiment with different items when painting. To finish we added a bit of Leprechaun gold! Here are some of our creations!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

You will need:
-Watercolor paper
-Tempera paints (blue, yellow, green and white)
-Paintbrush
-Sponge
-Detergent Lid
-Shamrock stamps (I made mine using foam stickers)
-Gold Glitter

Chihuly

2011-03-13T20:41:00.005-05:00

I shared this project with children at the OKCMOA for Drop-in Art this weekend and our creations turned out wonderful! We focused on Chihuly: The Collection. The Collection is part of the permanent collection at the OKCMOA. It includes 18 glass installations, several paintings and of course the ever beautiful 55 foot glass tower. With all that inspiration we got started!

I had a last minute change of plans and it's so nice when it works out. I had planned to use string to hang these but my demo wasn't working out so I used wood paint sticks to hold it all together instead.

Here is what we did. Each child gets 5 clear plastic cups. We used acrylic paints to decorate the INSIDE of each cup. Tempera paints do not work very well because they bead up and don't seem to give the best coverage. Craft paints work excellent. You do not need artist grade paint. Just make sure it is a thin layer of paint. Now let your cups dry.

Next we used scissors to cut our cups. We made different cuts but the two most popular were to cut slits around the cup all the way to the bottom of the cup (giving a floral effect when fanned out) and to make spiral cuts.

Next we attach our cups to a paint stick using hot glue. We attached them in all sorts of ways. Remember how we painted the inside of our cups? This gives us that shiny glass look on the outside we are going for and is not as easily rubbed off when handled. When gluing we made sure our shiny sides are up. Here are some of our creations!

You will need:
-5 clear plastic cups for each child (I used Solo)
-Acrylic paint
-Brushes
-Scissors
-Hot glue
-Paint sticks

Art Books for Children

2011-03-01T09:03:00.006-06:00

Happy Tuesday! This is the first installment of book suggestions for children. A Facebook follower of mine asked me for book suggestions about artwork that she could share with her children. I thought it was an excellent idea to share with everyone and am planning to create a post each week filled with book ideas about a particular art subject.

These are a few books that I like that take a closer look at actual works of art.

You can probably check out most of these books from your local library. Otherwise, I purchase most of my books online at Amazon.

The Art Book for Children I and II by Phaidon Press

Come Look with Me Series by Gladys Blizzard
Exploring Landscape Art with Children
Enjoying Art with Children
World of Play
Animals in Art

Look! Series by Gillian Wolfe
Drawing the Line in Art
Really Smart Art
Seeing the Light in Art
Zoom in on Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art series
Museum Colors
Museum 123
Museum ABC
Museum Shapes

Touch the Art Books by Appel and Guglielmo
These board books great for young children.
Make VanGogh's bed
Pop Warhols Top
Feed Matisse's Fish
Brush Mona Lisa's Hair

3-D ABC: A Sculptural Alphabet by Bob Raczka

Next week I will go over some of my favorite books that discuss color. Thanks again for the idea, Zina! :) Happy Reading!

More Nelson Clocks!

2011-02-27T12:07:00.003-06:00

I would share more, but today I only wrote directions on my Facebook page. I did this mainly because I was so busy yesterday that I only took a few lousy iPhone photos.

I did this project with HUNDREDS of children at OKCMOA's Family Day yesterday and it was a hit!

Find me on Facebook! I'd love to see you there!

Blogger award

2011-02-27T08:55:00.003-06:00

Wow, Stylish Blogger? Me?

Thank you Jodi at One Crayola Short. You are too kind! :)

Rules: 1. Shout out to the person that gave the award.

2. Tell 7 things about yourself.

3. Pass the award on to your fav 5 blogs.

Seven things, eh? Well here are a few things you may not know about me since I mainly talk art and not about a lot of personal stuff here.

1. I have lived in Oklahoma since I was 10 but will always be a Yankee at heart as I was born and raised in Buffalo, NY.

2. I have been happily married for over 10 years to an incredible man that I have been dating and known for over 15 years. We have two boys ages 5 and 7. They both love creating and exploring. As a family we prefer to be outdoors. We camp, hike, garden and go on adventures. As a couple, my husband and I like to go out and visit local restaurants. We are foodies. I am an admitted creme brulee snob. We rarely see movies. I can't even remember the last movie I watched in the theater. (I should mention our getting out alone is only do-able thanks to my awesome Mother and Father-in-Law who are happily willing to take care of the boys.)

3. Creativity is in my blood. My Mom is beyond crafty and a fabric whiz. She designs craft patterns for quilts and more. Find her at Cleo and Me. My Dad has always been an artist at heart and pours his energy into being the Director of Advertising for AWG.

4. I have always enjoyed the arts. I won Best of Show in the Oklahoma State Fair in 5th grade. I got a few big ribbons. I don't know where they are. That piece was sent to a Children's show in Kyoto, Japan. They sent me a beautiful painted wooden fan as a reward from that show. I still have it.

5. I lost my 'fine art' artistic spirit for a while in high school. I had a teacher that squashed it. I will never forget her or that conversation. I have seen her at shows where I've had pieces but have not ever spoken to her again. I didn't give up on art completely, I moved on to pottery but still had her words in the back of my mind. I got past it in college where I surrounded myself with art and painted again for the first time in several years.

6. I really love having the opportunity to share art with children. It is amazing and new each time to be able to watch their creative energy work. They have a freedom and spirit most adults forget about.

7. Everyday is a blessing. As a wife, mother, daughter, aunt, teacher and friend, I am thankful for each and every day.

Here are a few fantastic blogs I refer to for inspiration and pass the Stylish Blogger Award to! I have so many favorite blogs, these are a few.

Holly at Lines, Dots and Doodles

Kristyn at Her Dabbles

Hallie at Think Create Art

Jen at Paint Cut Paste

Art Project Girl at Art Project Girl

Tick Tock!

2011-02-23T09:24:00.007-06:00

Tick. Tock. Look, a clock! Children ages 3-5 joined me at the OKCMOA to create wonderful paper collage clocks inspired by George Nelson from the exhibition, George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher.

The exhibition includes many wonderful things but we concentrated on his clocks.

In the gallery we read a book, Hickory Dickory Dock by Keith Baker. Taking a closer look at the Nelson clocks we notice many shapes. I ask the children to look very closely and tell me if they think anything is missing from his clocks. Immediate answer, Numbers! Correct. The Nelson clocks do not have numbers. We tell time by hand position and that is something the clocks have in common. Hands. Many of the clocks have "spokes" radiating from a center shape, commonly a circle. (to better explain radiating, we talk about sunrays, spokes on a tire, etc.) These are all things we think about as we head back to the classroom.

Everyone starts with a 16x14 piece of tagboard. This is our background. Now the children get to choose a color for the back of their clock from a stack of 12x12 cardstock. From this piece they cut out a large shape of their choice. We glue it down.

Now everyone has colored scrap papers, a black circle, pre-cut white strips, scissors, glue sticks, crayons and a metal brad.

We can use the black circle for the center of our clock or use it as a template to cut a circle from one of our scrap pieces of paper.

We cut two clock hands from scrap and attach them to the center of our circles with our brad. On the backside of our circle we arrange our spokes, or white strips and glue them down. We can now glue this piece to the center of our clock.

From here we cut shapes to put at the end of our spokes.

We also use Crayola Construction Paper Crayons to color or add details if we want.

Bright, beautiful Nelson inspired clocks!

You will need:
-Black tagboard or cardstock
-Colored cardstock or construction paper
-Scissors
-Glue stick
-Metal Brad
-Crayons optional

Love all year 'round

2011-02-18T15:27:00.005-06:00

I know, Valentines is over. Boo. I had this class for children ages 3-5 planned long before Valentines Day but it was cancelled due to snow and ice. We made it up today and had so much fun. We used a variety of techniques to create this fun and personal Valentine.

We talked about a few things while in the gallery. We read a book and looked at a painting by Grace Hartigan. If you look real close, there are even a few hearts! Perfect! We wandered through the geometrics and found more Valentine colors and shapes. We talked about the colors red and pink and how you create pink by mixing red and white. We talked about stripes and became stripes by laying on the floor.

Looking around in the galleries is fun but we were ready to create!

First we traced our arm and hand (from elbow up) on paper and cut it out. We set it aside. Then we glued our red piece on top of the blue piece of paper.

I passed out paints with several tools: a fork, q-tip and heart sponge.

First we used the fork to stamp around the blue part of the paper.

Then we cut two hearts from cardstock. One bigger and one a bit smaller. We used the q-tip to make dots around the edge of the bigger heart.

Now we glue our hand and hearts using a glue stick to our red paper. We use our heart sponges to add hearts if we wish. Finally we and add details with chalk pastels.

You will need:
-cardstock in a variety of colors
-glue stick
-pencil
-scissors
-tempera paints (we used white, light pink and hot pink)
-fork, q-tip and cut sponges (optional)

Friday Favorites

2011-02-18T14:05:00.002-06:00

Happy Friday to you! Can you believe we are more than halfway through February? This post is formerly known as Feedback Fridays. These are a few projects from around the web that caught my attention today. Have a great weekend!

This is a really neat process that I can't wait to do!
Fractured Vases over at There's a Dragon in my Art Room

I am a sucker for printmaking. I love how they printed on newsprint too!
Blue Dog Printmaking over at Fine Lines

Little ones love resists and this one sure is fun!
Pre-K Lizards over at Lines, Dots and Doodles.

There were so many fun projects this week. I will post more next week. Have a creative weekend everyone!

Super Sculptures

2011-02-16T13:33:00.008-06:00

Tiny Tuesdays at the OKCMOA is a program for children ages 2-5. It is come and go art class designed for little ones. This month was filled with super sculpture making fun.

We talked about what sculpture is and got busy.

I had portions of clay in bags ready to go. I had the children warm up the clay in their hands first and create whatever shape they wanted.

Items were on the table ready to go!

Using our fine motor skills we picked little items to stick in our clay and even used our pincer grasp to thread beads on pipe cleaners.

You will need:
-Crayola Air Dry Clay
-Sequins, beads, pipecleaners, feathers, and more
-cardboard to sit clay on

Winter Blues

2011-02-02T22:28:00.008-06:00

Don't be blue! I think this is the perfect time to post this project I did with toddlers ages 15-36 months last week at the OKCMOA. I don't know about you my friends but we are snowed in! I am determined not to let cabin fever bring us down and hopefully this little project will chase the blues away for you and your toddler.

We discovered the color blue in the galleries, taking a closer look at painterly abstraction pieces as well as minimalist works by Anne Truitt.

In the classroom we got busy with blue!

We began by rolling dark blue on our papers with brayers. You can buy inexpensive foam rollers at your local craft store. I recommend having some on hand!

Then we used a big feather to add light metallic blue.

We finished with white. I put snowflake foam stickers on floral blocks to create our own stamps.

They turned out quite nice and would look great under a nice white mat and framed to hang in your home all winter long.

You will need:
-Student grade watercolor paper
-Brayers
-Tempera paints: Dark blue, light blue (metallic if you can find it) and white
-Feathers
-Foam stickers for stamping

NAEA Convention in Seattle

2011-02-02T13:36:00.004-06:00

One word: Seattle.

I am so excited to be attending the NAEA Convention in Seattle next month! I have never been to Seattle and I know it is going to be a whirlwind of excitement with all that is going on.

Not only am I attending but I am extremely honored, excited and thrilled (THRILLED!) to have been asked to be a presenter. I was thinking about going and then this opportunity came up and the deal was sealed. I will give more details later like where I will be and the time and the title of the program, etc.

The best news though is that I really hope to have the chance to meet some of you there!

Who else is going and what sort of convention advice do you have for me!?

*Convention photo from http://arteducators.org/news/national-convention

Yikes! Stripes!

2011-01-30T21:02:00.006-06:00

Children ages 3-5 helped me explore the OKCMOA to find stripes. First we talked about lines. Lines are all around us. Then we took a look at a few books to find stripes. Simply put for them, stripes are lines that are next to each other.

The class is only an hour so we had to get busy. Each child had a paper plate palette with several colors of tempera paints to choose from. I supplied q-tips, one for each color. Q-tips work great for some projects because they are quick and disposable. If we had to wash a brush between all the colors it would have taken forever.

We paint horizontal stripes with our paper set horizontal. I encourage the children not to mix colors at this point, but to put the colors in any order using whatever colors they want.

This child only used two colors. He was proud that he was making a pattern.

We left our painting to dry while we left the classroom to explore the galleries. We viewed several works taking a closer look at pieces by Frank Stella and Gene Davis.

We played a game of I Spy and went back to the classroom to create a new piece using our original painting.

Here we cut our paintings into more, you got it, stripes! We use glue sticks to put our strips of paper on black tag board leaving space between each strip in order to create yet another stripe. I tell them they can lay the cut strips of paper down in whatever order they wish. Some left them in the same order as they were cut and others turned pieces around and mixed it up.

Great use of fine motor skills today for these kids!

So much fun!

You will need:
-Student grade watercolor paper
-Tempera paints
-Palette and q-tips or brushes
-Black tag board several inches wider than size of watercolor paper
-Glue sticks
-Scissors

p.s. I have some pretty exciting news to share with you soon!

Sand Casting

2011-01-29T20:24:00.006-06:00

Today at the OKCMOA I shared two kinds of sculptures. We made relief and 3-D sculptures. They are turned out wonderful! This is a project your children will love and an idea you can incorporate with different school subjects as well. Not only is it fun for fossils and Science, but many sculpture artists use molds to create their works and this is an easy way for children to learn about how that is done.

First we started with the relief sculptures. We accomplished these by sand casting, or making molds in sand.

First we start with damp sand in a dish. The sand needs to be a little wet so it will take the imprint of the object.

I told the children to smooth the sand with their hands and choose objects that they wanted to mold. I had a variety of items; little plastic bugs and army men, pony beads, shells etc. You gently push the item into the sand and remove it.

Then I mixed the plaster and poured it over the sand tapping the dish lightly to remove any air bubbles. NOTE: NEVER PUT PLASTER INTO A SINK.

I have several portions of plaster measured out so all I need to do is add water and have the kids start mixing.

The molds need to sit for 30 minutes!

What do we do for 30 minutes?

Make more sculptures! We talked about 3-D sculptures and used scrap paper to create them.

30 minutes is up! Let's check on our sand castings.

They are ready! Gently unmold over a bucket or box, whatever you have on hand. You can re-use the sand. Use your hands and then a paint brush to lightly brush away the sand away revealing the items you pressed in the sand. The kids were amazed!

For sand casting you will need:
-damp sand
-deep plate
-plaster of paris, water and mixing bowls and disposable spoon
-items to mold

For paper sculptures you will need:
-paper
-scissors
-glue sticks
-color tape optional

Head to Toe

2011-01-20T08:28:00.003-06:00

This is a class I did some time ago but logged it away for another day. I remember doing this in school when I was younger. Not a new idea, but so fun and the kids love seeing themselves life size! Do you have a roll of butcher paper? This is the perfect project for you!

This class was for kids ages 3-5 years old. After we read our story and visited the gallery we got busy. I had sheets of paper on the floor for everyone. Each child laid down on the paper and was traced by an adult with a marker. If you are doing this at home, have siblings trace each other!

The younger ones focused more on selecting paint colors that portrayed how they felt while older children painted in their outlines to the likeness of what they were wearing. A great book discussing color and feelings is My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss.

One step further: My classes are one-time and only an hour long but if I had more time I would have put another sheet of paper on the back, cut out both, stuffed with paper and stapled them closed around the edges.

You will need:
-Butcher paper
-Black marker
-Tempera paints or markers to fill

Find Laugh, Paint, Create on Facebook

2011-01-19T22:01:00.006-06:00

Happy New Year! (A little late, I know.) So, we all want increased blog traffic. Tuesday I had over 300 visitors and 1,500 this week. I thank you for that! In trying to keep this blog better updated and numbers increasing I created a Facebook Page. I actually made this last year thanks to a comment from one of you, but have decided to give it a go now that I think I have some time to devote to it. So, are you on facebook? Give me a like! I'd love for you to follow and comment here or there. I'd like to say more but honestly, I'm a bit tired from taking care of a sick little boy. Goodnight and Happy Creating, or Facebooking! :)

Oh, on the right sidebar there is a little link that will take you right to the page! :)

Do you have a FB page? Let me know and I'll like ya back!

Snowman Collage

2011-01-18T15:44:00.006-06:00

Today I got to share this fun project with children at The Oklahoma City Museum of Art. It is part of the Tiny Tuesdays program that I am so happy to be a part of. We had a great time today creating these personalized silly snowmen. Snowman collage is not a new idea but adding a little tempera paint and a bright color of paper to mat the picture might make this old project new to you.

I did not give any templates or specific instructions on how to decorate the snowmen. We discussed how to make the snowmen unique through things a silly snowman might wear or use. We discussed things to find on a face and items to wear on the body. The children had fun!

First we glued our blue paper on our larger piece of red paper. Then we cut white scrap paper and glued it at the bottom of our blue paper. This grounded our snowmen. After that we cut our snowman shapes and used more scrap paper to decorate our snowmen.

See the top of this snowman? It's a heart and that I love this wonderful personal touch! That is part of the fun not using pre-cut forms.

When the collage was finished we used white tempera paint and q-tips to add snow!

You will need:
-9x12 blue construction paper
-12x15 red construction paper
-scrap papers
-scissors
-glue stick
-q-tips
-white tempera paint

Blue Prints

2011-01-09T20:08:00.006-06:00

I had a wonderful day of making art with children of all ages at the OKCMOA's Drop-in Art Program this past weekend. I am honored to be on board for another season of teaching art to children. This is a great little project to learn about collage, printmaking and texture. This technique is actually called collagraph, or printmaking from collage.

We used a piece of black poster board as our printing plate. The kids went through to pick and choose from a variety of different items: yarn, corrugated cardboard, foam stickers, fabric, craft sticks, etc.

Using a glue stick, glue your collage items down. We used glue sticks because they dry fast and we were going right into printing. If you use Elmer's or similar glue, the items will likely slide out of place before having a few hours to dry.

When the collage is finished I had the kids move to a printing area. I had plexi, paint and brayers set up on newspaper to help keep the mess under control.

We just used washable Crayola tempera paint. Blue is the color we used, but you could use whatever! Cover your entire collage with a nice even layer of paint. It might take a few times.

We printed on white paper that is a little larger than the printing plate. (The size I prepared was: 9x6 cut white paper to print on and 8x5 black posterboard for printing plate.) Holding plate upside down, center over paper and press down. Press firmly all over and gently peel apart. This is the first print. You can re-paint and make as many editions of this print as you like! We had so much fun, it really kept the kids busy.

You will need:
-Poster board
-white paper
-tempera paint
-foam roller
-collage items
-glue sticks
-scissors
-plexi or something to roll paint out on

Town of van Snow

2010-12-14T20:18:00.005-06:00

This is a project I did with 5th graders as part of an outreach program. Our inspiration was van Gogh. The art kits we handed out included oil pastels and that is what we used to create these post-impressionist renderings.

To get the kids started we talked a bit about van Gogh and his style. We looked at Starry Night and the movement created in the sky. I had each child sketch a horizon line, tree, and path leading to a vanishing point. We sketched movement in the sky and included the crescent moon. From here I encouraged the kids to add whatever winter items they wanted. Some added igloos, snowmen, gingerbread houses and more. I tried to get the kids to use short dashes to fill their pages and to use the white of their paper for snow. They turned out fantastic! I loved the imagination of these incredible kids!

You will need:
-Drawing paper
-Pencil
-Oil Pastels
-van Gogh reference material: Starry Night

Here are some of the great works made!

Winter Villages

2010-12-13T20:52:00.005-06:00

I can't believe I have not posted since Thanksgiving. I have been so busy and have quite a few projects to share with you this week.

This little collage project is a lot of fun and I know you will enjoy making it. I had a wonderful opportunity this past week that I really enjoyed. Allied Arts brought me on board for a really fun pay it forward type of project. I got to go into a few OKC schools and hand out art sets, talk about being an artist and teach art projects to 1st, 3rd and 5th graders at a few different schools.

They were so excited to have their very own art set to take home and experiment with. These kids made a big impact on me. I saw so much creativity and talent. It was a lot of fun!

So, back to this little winter scene...

This project was done by 1st graders. Each child was given a 12x12 black piece of cardstock and a 12x9 piece of white cardstock. (The white piece has to be a bit smaller so after the pieces are cut, a gap will be left to make the street.) A pile of scrap paper in different colors was set in the middle of the tables. To start I asked the children to hold up their white paper "the long way." This is important because the wavy line that makes the road needed to be cut "the long way." I told the children to make one long cut across their paper. This cut could be wavy or whatever!

After the road was created by cutting and gluing the white paper, the real magic happened. I gave little instruction. I told them to cut shapes to create a winter village. Houses could be squares, rectangles...roofs could be triangles etc. We discussed the elements on a house; doors, windows, chimneys etc.

At this point I set them free and wow. They created some really amazing things!

You will need:

-Black cardstock
-White cardstock
-Colored cardstock
-Glue sticks
-Scissors
-Foam snowflake stickers optional

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-24T13:27:00.007-06:00

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving! I had a wonderful time at the OKCMOA's Tiny Tuesday program this month sharing my fun turkey project with children ages 2-5.

Each child began with a piece of orange tag board. Then they went through the assembly line to get all the pieces.

I pre-cut the turkey body, heads and feathers. The idea with the turkey was to match the color of our turkey paper with the color of our embellishments. For example, kids glued yellow pom poms, real feathers, buttons and jewels on the yellow paper feather.

First we glued our turkey bodies on our paper.

Then we glued our feather and legs and began to add our embellishments. Then they could add crayon to really customize their turkeys.

Even my boys got to come with me since they were out of school. They were great helpers!

Everyone had a lot of fun with this color matching turkey adventure! Here are some of our finished pieces. Happy Thanksgiving!

You will need:
-card stock in variety of colors
-scissors
-glue
-feathers, beans, beads, pom poms, jewels, sequins, buttons and more.
-glue stick
-elmer's glue
-crayons

Feedback Fridays

2010-11-12T20:38:00.007-06:00

Well, here it is. The first installation of Feedback Fridays. The idea was to call out my two favorite projects I saw during the week along with the site that sent me the most traffic. That is a bit tricky because it does not mean that they featured me or anything like that. They might just link to me-however, it still gets you come my way, so thank you! I think it's good for everyone, don't you? We're all connected here in blogosphere and I am all for supporting each other.

So.

The site that sent me the most traffic this week is

drumroll...

The Artful Parent. Thanks Jean! :)

I saw a lot of great projects this week and my favorite two are below.

This beautiful Starry Night Collage. Spectacular!

Find it at Art with Mrs. Smith

The second project I fell in love with was...

Autumn Paintings! Glorious!
Find this project at MN Art Gal

I hope you will go give these project some love. I love them and am sure you will too!

Have a creative weekend!

Falling Leaves

2010-11-09T20:22:00.006-06:00

Fall into fall with this fun project for toddlers. This morning I had a great group of kids at the OKCMOA ages 15 months-3years. We gathered around and talked about changing leaves. We looked at autumn trees in a book and read a story. We learned leaves come in many colors and shapes. In the gallery our magic color was red.

Each workstation was set up with white paper and tree trunks. I pre-cut the trunks. They are simple...big Y's. Each little student used a glue stick to apply their trees.

For a fun way to give our leaves different shapes we used foam stamps. These are the sticker kind and I put them on the end of a glue stick to make it easy for little hands to stamp. If I had though of it earlier I would have cut small wood blocks. Oh well, another day!

I gave the kids one color at a time. First we used green. stamp, stamp, stamp!

Then yellow, orange, red and brown. Some of us even got our hands involved! Great fun today. Happy fall!

For this project you will need:
-white paper
-brown construction paper
-scissors
-foam shapes with sticker back
-glue sticks
-object for foam stickers (ie, glue stick, block, corks)

Fabulous Frescoes

2010-11-07T12:42:00.008-06:00

To paint fresco means to paint on fresh, moist plaster with pigments dissolved in water. I changed it up a bit for many reasons. The biggest reason I found is that little kids will push a paintbrush right through wet plaster. So, we painted on mostly dry plaster with tempera paints. They turned out great!

There are many brands of plaster. I got a big bucket at Michael's. Check the ratio. Mine was about 2 cups plaster to one cup water. Mix, mix, mix! I poured the plaster into these red plastic solo plates that I found at walmart. They were pretty deep and in a nice shape. Give them a few taps to remove air bubbles.

You can see this painted fresco in the plate here.

This plate also made it easy for the fresco to pop out of when completely dry. It begins to harden right away setting up pretty good in 15 minutes and hard in 30 minutes depending on several factors. I would say leave them in molds for at least 4 hours to be completely hard.

We were trying to focus on Venice using the new exhibition as inspiration, but sometimes we just want to paint what we want! :) Here are some of our wonderful creations made at Drop in Art by children of all ages.

You will need:
-plaster of paris, water, measuring cup, disposable mixing bowls and disposable mixing utensils.
-solo plates
-paintbrushes
-tempera paints

This one is popped out of mold:

Thank you!

2010-11-07T11:43:00.003-06:00

I just wanted to take a moment to thank my readers! I just hit 200 followers and am pretty excited about that. I check traffic about once a week and always find it interesting to see where you come from. Near and far, I thank you.

I also like to see how you found me and most of the time it is from another site. Sometimes you Google stuff like, "Russian architecture project" or "child monet". Either way I am happy you are here!

There are many sites that send you here. There are a few that always stand out. I'd like to thank every single one. Thank you! However, there are a few I'd like to call out by name.

The Crafty Crow- I have been featured on the Crafty Crow many times and I thank Cassi for finding my projects and her readers for coming here.

The Artful Parent - I love this site and how she documents the work of her children. She is an inspiration to parents and reinforces why art is so important in the life of a child. Thank you Jean for the recent link to my Handprint Spiders!

MaryAnn F. Kohl- Wow. The Mother of all art projects. I started seeing a lot of traffic from her publishers site. I have read all of her books and if you are a parent these should be in your library for go to ideas! Such an honor, thank you. thank you. thank you. Here is the link to her blog also.

I thank other bloggers for linking me. I try to do the same. If you noticed I have not linked you, comment to me so I can be sure to add you. We are a community! Together we are a springboard for ideas, feedback and sometimes a pat on the back.

I get a lot of readers sent my way from these fab art bloggers.

That Artist Woman. Thanks Gail!

Deep Space Sparkle. Thanks Patty! I love your new blog design!

MaryMaking. Thanks Mary!

Briar Grove Elementary Art Page. Thanks Katie!

I'm going to try a new feature called Feedback Friday. I am going to post my favorite thing I saw on another blog for the week as well as feature what blog or site sent me the most traffic. I will start this Friday. (I hope.) :)

Have a creative week everyone! Thanks for your support!

Warm Colors

2010-11-02T10:57:00.007-05:00

The weather is changing and so are the leaves. This project is geared for children ages 2-5. This is part of the OKCMOA's new program called Tiny Tuesdays. This day we painted. I supplied the children with a warm color paint palette. We used red, yellow and orange. No rules, just fun!

Sometimes I like to give kids different items to paint with. This day we used feathers, brushes, sponges and q-tips.

With our sleeves rolled up and aprons on they were ready to use their tools and hands too!

I set up a glitter station for those that wanted to add some sparkle when they were finished. Happy, busy kids!

You will need:
-heavy paper. We used tagboard
-variety of brushes and tools: brushes, q-tips, sponges, feathers and more.
-paint. I use Crayola washable tempera
-glitter optional

Little Monsters

2010-10-31T20:19:00.006-05:00

Happy Halloween! Monsters aren't just for Halloween, you can make these sweet guys anytime! A great group of children ages 15 months-3 years old joined me for a monster making class.

We read Goodnight Goon, talked about monsters and found spooky colors in the gallery. We found goon green, pumpkin orange and black cat.

I forgot to take pictures of the assembly line, but it was pretty much set up like this. I pre-cut monster eyes, noses, mouths and teeth. I cut silly teeth (rectangles) and sharp teeth (triangles). I also pre-cut hair which the kids could bend, crunch or curl. **Older children could cut all of their own pieces.

Everyone went through the line to pick their parts in a variety of colors. Monster bodies were from a piece of paper folded in half and artists and helpers were instructed to cut any shape, just not to cut the fold.

Monsters unfolded reveal a fun shape. Perfect!

This is glued to a heavy piece of black paper. We used tagboard. From here kids used a gluestick to make their monster! They turned out very silly, scary and quite fun!

You will need:
-cardstock
-scissors
-gluestick
-black tagboard

Creative Cars

2010-10-29T17:11:00.010-05:00

This was a really fun class I did at the OKCMOA for kids ages 3-5. We read a book, talked about the parts on a car and used the Jonathan Hils exhibition, INTERSECTION as our inspiration. In the classroom we had so much fun! ***note: This is a LOT of prepwork and is not typical. This class was for 10 kids. I think this is a great project for a moms with a few kids and if you're crazy enough to do this for more than 10 kiddos I'm pretty sure you earn sainthood. :)

I prepped by painting banker boxes and cutting out an area on the bottom of the box leaving a 2 inch area around it to attach suspenders and to keep the box in it's shape. The kids chose a color and got to work. If you plan on painting allow this to be a two day project.

The material table included colored tape, paper, solo cups, paper plates and more to decorate our cars.

You can see we used paper plates and brads for wheels and solo cups attached with brads for headlights.

I cut 4 slots for ribbon on the boxes. We threaded ribbon to make suspenders for kids to wear their cars out of the classroom! Of course we had to have a car parade first!

You will need:
-a box (copy boxes are great. I bought a package of banker boxes at Walmart for 11 dollars)
-paint for car color (allow time to dry)
-paper plates
-brads
-solo cups
-glue sticks, school glue
-construction paper scraps
-tape
-scissors
-ribbon to make suspenders
-anything else you want to add!

Grouting Mosaics

2010-10-29T16:42:00.002-05:00

Grout, grout, grout. I was so tired of grouting that I didn't take any good close up shots. Plus my husband took my boys and my good camera camping so I am left with a few cruddy iPhone pics.

I was working on a big scale so I laid out a tarp and got busy. In a coolwhip container I mixed up my SANDED tile grout. I used white but you can buy a variety of colors. Follow directions but usually I just add water a mix a batch at a time until it is like frosting. Let it sit for a few minutes to activate.

I wear GLOVES. It is a dirty business and if you are doing a lot it dries your hands terribly.

So, smoosh grout all over your piece. It will cover but that is okay. You want it to get in all the nooks and crannys.

I have a big bucket filled with water. You DO NOT want to do this in your sink!!! I get my sponge wet and squeeze most of the water out. I rub the top of the piece to remove excess grout and the majority of grout off the pieces. A white film will remain. You can keep wiping but it will remain until it is dry and cleaned off with windex. This bucket is a dump bucket. NEVER DUMP DOWN DRAIN! I have a nasty spot in my backyard I dump in. The big bits of dried grout get thrown away when it dries. All of your tools need to be cleaned in that same bucket.

When everything is wiped clean, set to dry for about 4 hours. Then you can lightly rub with an old tshirt to remove haze and use tools to remove any other unwanted grout. Now wait 24 hours! Then hit the tiles, beads etc with windex that is sprayed on paper towels to add shine. DO NOT spray your mosaic! These instructions are meant for small indoor pieces. If you want outdoor pieces that is another ballgame. Enjoy!

1st Grade Mosaics in Progress

2010-10-21T09:05:00.010-05:00

Along with the 1st grade class projects, I was asked to do the 1st grade individual projects. Yes, I have been very busy! We are making mosaic tile frames. Easy enough.

I admit, I am a bit of an arts and crafts hoarder. I had all of these china and glass pieces for the kids to use since I used to dapple in mosaic. I chose china pieces that were not real sharp. I also did not include any pieces of the stained glass tiles I have. I did use the vitreous glass tiles. They have blunt edges.

I put a variety of pieces in a cardboard lid on each table. (the artroom tables each seat 4 kids) The frames I bought at Michael's for 1.50 each. I wiped a thick layer of glue on the frames so the students just had to pick and lay the pieces on the glue. I use WELDBOND.
It is fume free and non-toxic. It will hold china and glass etc. to wood. I also found some neat little animal beads among my goods. I threw those in too along with some letter beads. I will take some close up shots this weekend.

I have 39 frames to grout this weekend! Will keep you posted! :)

You will need:
-substrate to tile, ie: frame
-WELDBOND
-mosaic tiles, china, beads, etc.

I will cover grouting next post! :)

It takes a Village

2010-10-20T08:12:00.006-05:00

For my son's school auction I lead the 1st grade art project I titled "It takes a Village." Thinking of how true that statement is for the auction alone. All the parents, teachers, businesses that donated items and more to put this fund-raising shindig together. My small part was a few man hours to complete two class projects that happily sold for quite a bit of money! (Both projects went for over $2,000 dollars!) This is money the school will use for new computers and classroom upgrades. So wonderful.

I wish I had taken better pictures of these pieces. They really did turn out so beautiful.

You can do this on your own!
You will need:
-colored card stock
-oil pastels
-scissors
-acid free glue dots
-framing optional

This is a collaboration piece. I pre-cut different shaped buildings from card stock. Children were instructed to use oil pastels to decorate their building as a home, store, apartment, etc. They were told to think about details like doors, windows, landscaping, shingles, etc.

I collected all the buildings and created a childlike background. The background was done on two pieces of pastel paper and colored on top of with oil pastel. I cut and colored trees and shrubs. All of the pieces were put down with acid free glue dots. The finished piece was 30x24 matted and framed. I think this would be cute on a small scale as well!

Spooky Spiders

2010-10-19T21:40:00.008-05:00

Halloween is almost here! For this fun class filled with toddlers we took a look at spiders. We read a Halloween book and jumped right in.

First we used white oil pastel to draw, draw, draw all over our papers! We press hard and don't worry about making a perfect web shape. We just want lots of lines! Now the magic happens. We use purple watercolors to fill our paper. Surprise! Our webs appear.

At this point we let our paper dry and visit the gallery. We found pattern in Jonathan Hils work and joined together for a round of "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Back in the classroom parents painted their childrens hand with black tempera paint. We used our hand as a stamp and finished with google eyes and some purple glitter. We had a lot of fun!

You will need:
-student grade watercolor paper
-white oil pastel
-purple watercolor paint and brushes
-google eyes and glue
-glitter optional

Wire Sculpture Cars

2010-10-19T21:19:00.006-05:00

I did an entire semester on wire in college. Back then I worked for weeks to create a wire hairdryer. This brought back a lot of memories for me. There are really so many things you can create simply by bending wire!

Using the Jonathan Hils exhibition at the OKCMOA as inspiration, children of all ages used wire and beads to create their own car creations.

First I had the children draw their template on paper. Then using a heavy gauge of steel wire (which is actually quite pliable with hands) they began to bend the steel to create the outline for their car.

At this point small gauge wire of different colors is woven and wrapped around to create a grid pattern. Beads were added for fun if the artist wanted to use them.

Here are a few of our creations:

CAUTION: wire can be sharp. Also, be wary of where the end of your wire is.

You will need:
-heavy gauge steel wire
-decorative color wire
-beads
-wire cutters
-pliers can also be used

Toddlers build Venice

2010-09-21T13:28:00.008-05:00

So, I had a pretty neat idea that I shared with the Museum and it is now a realization thanks to someone that could share the vision and find the funding. Tiny Tuesdays at the OKCMOA was born. It's open ended art making for little ones ages 2-5 once a month from 10-12pm.

I know how hard it can be to get to a class on time and I hope this will give Moms some flexibility with their schedule. I hope some of you will share this new adventure and visit me at the Museum.

Today we had Venice on our mind using, La Serenissima: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Art from North American Collections as an inspiration.

I had some books to look at:

I set up our shapes in assembly line fashion for the little ones to choose from.

We used shapes to build our city, grounding the piece with a bridge. Above the bridge are buildings and below are our boats ready to set sail.

Here are some of our pieces. I hope you enjoy!

You will need:
-14x11 black poster board
-pre-cut shapes (squares, rectangles, semi-circles, triangles and more)
-glue stick
-scissors

Venetian Architecture

2010-09-12T11:42:00.004-05:00

Drop in Art at the OKCMOA yesterday was so much fun! I had really wonderful group of creative children and adults that came in to draw, color and paint their creations with me.

We drew inspiration from the view painters in the new exhibition, La Serenissima: Eighteenth-century Venetian Art from North American Collections.

I made a few notes on the board to get started.

This first step can be done with pencil or jump right into it with a Sharpie marker. If you use pencil you can erase but you will need to allow more time because the pencil lines will need to be gone over with Sharpie anyway.

Begin by drawing a line across your paper. You draw your buildings as you want above the line. Below the line you mirror the buildings using a wavy line to represent reflecting in the water. If you used pencil, you need to now go over your pencil lines with Sharpie marker before going to the next step.

Now use oil pastels to fill in your drawing. For the reflection buildings try to color lightly so the paper will accept more of the watercolor wash.

Now you are ready for the final step! Create water and sky by using blue watercolor to wash over your drawing. The oil pastel resists the watercolor.

These turned out great! Here are some of the works!

You will need:
-watercolor paper
-pencils
-rulers
-Sharpie or other permanent marker
-oil pastels
-blue watercolor
-water and brushes

Sunset in Venice

2010-09-12T11:15:00.004-05:00

The OKCMOA has two exciting exhibits that opened this past week. One being, La Serenissima: Eighteenth-century Venetian Art from North American Collections and the other is Jonathan Hils: Intersection.

In this class for ages 15-36 months we took at look at La Serenissima. We focused on the maritime aspect of the exhibit finding ships and sailboats. I gathered the kids in a small circle and we used our arms as oars to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. They really liked that. In the classroom we read the book, Ship Shapes by Stella Blackstone. This is a really cute book!
To get started on our project each child had two pieces of white paper and two black ships. (Have older kids draw and cut their own boats!) I handed out paint palettes with warm and cool paint colors. I decided for the children to paint the sky and water separately because I didn't want them mixing up the colors.

First they painted the warm sky.

then cool colors for water

The kids used a glue stick to apply glue all over a piece of 14x11 black paper and parents helped place the water and sky paper together leaving a small 1/2 inch border to act as a mat.

Finally they glued their ships on and we set sail! Here are some of their works. So much fun!

You will need:
-14x11 black paper or posterboard
-2 pieces of watercolor paper 10x5
-warm pain colors
-cool paint colors
-pre cut boats for small children. For older kids have them draw and cut their own boats!
-paintbrushes

O'Keeffe Paintings

2010-08-17T14:07:00.004-05:00

For Drop-in-Art this past weekend at the OKCMOA I had museum guests and members create flower paintings using Georgia O'Keeffe as our inspiration. To get everyone started I had a variety of flowers on a table for people to choose and take to their workstation. Using the flower to study detail they lightly sketched then painted their O'Keeffe inspired paintings. I encouraged people to work large, and to create a background for their flower as well.

For this you will need:
-watercolor paper
-paint (we used Crayola washable)
-brushes
-pencil

Here are some of our creations from all ages. They turned out beautiful! So happy to share these with you!

Fancy Fabric Collage

2010-08-16T19:42:00.006-05:00

In a fun class for children ages 15-36 months I prepared a fun fabric collage project. This class went hand in hand with the OKCMOA's (now gone) exhibit, Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design. The exhibit featured many famous costumes that were worn in some of your favorite movies. Who doesn't love costumes?

First we talked about fabric. What is fabric? "Your shirt is blue fabric, your dress is pink fabric" "What color of fabric am I wearing?" Then we talked about costumes. "Do you ever play dress up? What is your favorite costume? We read a Halloween book, Spot's Halloween-which might seem odd in August, but it's about costumes and even has Spot and his friends in costumes that are in the exhibit...Superman, Cowboy, perfect. These are some of the things we leave the classroom and search through the exhibit for.

On a table in assembly line fashion I set our a variety of fabrics and ribbons in a rainbow of colors. (I also included scissors as an option for parents to use if they pleased.) I tried to incorporate a variety of textures as well. Each workstation had an 9x12 piece of interfacing (you could use cardboard, poster board or whatever!), tacky glue and glue stick.

The children went through the line and picked out the pieces they wanted to use and placed them down. It was easiest to have adult squeeze glue all over interfacing and have child place fabric pieces on top.

You will need:
-Interfacing or cardboard
-fabrics (precut to small shapes)
-ribbons
-glue
-scissors

So much fun! Here are some of our finished fabric collages!

Paper Costumes

2010-07-10T19:32:00.005-05:00

We had a lot of fun today creating paper costumes at the OKCMOA. For Drop-in-art today I had the children design and build costumes using poster board, tissue paper and other items.

First we drew and thought out our designs on paper. We related our pieces to the museum's current exhibition, Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design. Oddly, there were a lot of girls today so, we made a lot of dresses and skirts.

The best way to start with the skirts is to cut a length of poster board into a strip. From there you can attach tissue paper easily with a gluestick.

Here you can see a length of poster board cut to waist size and pieces of tissue paper have been added with foam stickers.

We added all sort of other embellishments and even a bodice to the waistband.

Add a bodice but cutting poster board and taping it on both sides to your waistband. You can sort of see on the backside of my example how to attach bodice.

You will need:
-poster board
-tissue paper
-scissors
-tape
-glue sticks
-hot glue (for fast instant hold)
-feather and any other items you wish to attach

Here are a few of our works! The kids loved this and yours will too!

closeup of rosettes on my class example. Enjoy!

Artist Trading Cards

2010-07-09T08:41:00.003-05:00

I have been having a great time this summer sharing printmaking on a small scale with kids through the Metropolitan Library System in Oklahoma County. I have almost visited all of the local libraries and the attendance has been great.

It has also been a big reminder in the fact that not all children are exposed to art. But they are hungry for it. My last visit a child ran after me at the end, hugged me and pleaded, "Please say you'll come back Miss Erin!" Heartstrings pulled!

I have been teaching printmaking and we have been making Artist Trading Cards, or ATC's. To keep cost down we are using craft paint, and brushes instead of inks and brayers. I start by supplying the kids with a small foam rectangle cut from foam plate (the size of our ATC), pencil, flat paintbrush, water dish, paper towels and 6 blank cards. Workstations are set up on newsprint to keep mess to a minimum.

I explain the process of using a pencil to draw our design on foam, pressing hard. We discuss our cards printing in reverse so any writing needs to be backwards.

I set them loose to draw then invite them to a front table of supplies to choose paints using a plate as palette.

At their workstation they used a flat brush to lightly coat their foam with paint. They use a pencil to go back over their valleys (lines they drew) if it filled with paint. They press their first card and voila! First card done. We talk about the first print being the artists proof. It shows us where we might have gone wrong and allows us a chance to learn and make changes for the rest of our printing run.

My example, draw on foam, cover lightly with paint and printed for my cards to trade with the kids.

The kids made many cards and at the end have the opportunity to exchange cards with one another. We had so much fun. Here are a few examples from my last visit. Have fun!

You will need:
-craft paint
-flat paint brush
-pencil
-foam for printing
-cards or paper
-water bowl for rinsing brush

Some of our works!

Ossorio Assemblages

2010-06-30T07:26:00.005-05:00

Using Alfonso Ossorio as our inspiration, we created little Ossorio Assemblages on cardboard for drop-in-art at the OKCMOA in June.

Assemblage in art is a 3-D composition put together with found objects...or in our case an odd variety of purchased item you can get at a hardware store, craft store or dollar store.

I laid out the items in assembly line fashion for the kids to choose their objects.

crafting goodies

electrical items from hardware store

random plastic toys I bought at a dollar store.

Recycle! So many things to save lids for!

CAUTION: We did use glue guns to assemble our pieces for instant hold. Parents and I were there to assist younger children. You could use a craft glue and wait for your piece to dry, but it just may not hold some of the items.

To take this project further you could paint a small canvas or board and lay your objects on top of it.

We had a great time and here are some of the finished pieces!

You will need:
-background piece of heavy cardboard, wood, canvas etc. to assemble pieces on
-fun objects either made or found!
-hot glue
-imagination!

Returning soon!

2010-06-29T17:58:00.008-05:00

Wow, a month gone by?

Summer is passing by quickly and I have mainly been enjoying this time with my family. We have had so many fun things going on. Lounging poolside, playing games, building a hotel-elevator and all!, nature outings and projects, gardening, zoo visits, hanging with friends, cooking out, hiking, building campfires-eating hobo dinners and smores!, reading, playing school, many adventures, arts gallore and so much more. I am teaching once a month at the museum. My classes might be full, but please come see me for drop-in-art!

July 10th we will be making Design and go Costumes.
Aug 14th we will be painting O'Keeffe Flowers

I have been fortunate to share art with kids at the OKCMOA for a few years. I am still amazed when I walk in the doors and I never take for granted the awesome exhibits and pieces from the permanent collection I am able to see anytime I want.

New to me though, on my own, is working with Metropolitan Library System.

I have done outreach through the museum with the MLS on a few occasions, but this summer it's just me! I have been visiting different libraries around the OKC area bringing art to a lot of kiddos. We have been busy making artist trading cards and learning about printmaking. I have met so many neat kids and parents. I have seen a lot of talent and ambition this summer. Kids hungry for art. Eating through supplies faster than I can buy them. Not only from my own children, but from kids all over the city. It continues the battle in me...artist vs. educator. What do I really want to be when I grow up? Can I really be both?

Do you know what you want to be when you grow up? ;)

Dress Me Up

2010-05-18T12:14:00.007-05:00

This morning at the OKCMOA I had an eager group of toddlers join me for a fun class revolving around our new exhibit, Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design. It is a glorious exhibit filled with over 85 garments and accessories worn in Hollywood films that are on loan from private collectors and Hollywood Studios. IT IS AMAZING. It was a lot of fun to share with the children. In this class we gathered ideas from the exhibit and translated them to a collage person.

To begin we created a background for our costumed people. I gave the kids tag board and cut squares of construction paper. The used a glue stick to apply.

Next we visited the exhibit for inspiration and returned to create our little people. I had an assembly line of fabrics, felt, yarn, buttons, sequins and more for the kids to go through and take back to their workstation.

The kids made design choices, but the parents were on hand to help to cut the yarn and fabrics.

To finish we glued our people on our backgrounds and called it a day! Here are some of our finished projects.

1,2,3 Paint with me

2010-05-15T12:47:00.007-05:00

Happy Birthday Jasper Johns!

One of the most important American artists of this century, we celebrate you today! This morning at the OKCMOA a great group of kids ages 3-5 joined me for an exciting artistic journey through paint and collage to celebrate Jasper Johns.

To begin I shared a little bit about Johns and we looked at examples from a few books. We created our own version of his numbers series and they turned out FANTASTIC.

We began at our first workstation. I had 11x14 paper set out along with newspaper scraps, glue sticks, paintbrushes, q-tips and paint palette.

To give us texture like Jasper Johns we used newspaper scraps. Rub your glue stick on your paper and apply newspaper randomly.

Then we used our cool color palette and covered our paper.

We moved to a second workstation to paint our numbers. I precut the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and laid them out on newspaper. Here we used warm paint palette plus white and used paint brushes and q-tips.

Then we glued our numbers on top to finish our masterpiece! While our pieces were drying we gathered beneath the glow of a Chihuly chandelier to read Chicka Chicka 123 by Lois Ehlert. It is a wonderful book all about numbers. We visited the galleries and returned to the class to pick clean our workspace and collect our artwork.

Close up of the newspaper under the paint.

You will need:
-11x14 student grade watercolor paper
-newspaper scraps plus newspaper to catch mess
-scrap white paper pre-cut into numbers
-green, blue, red, yellow, orange and white tempera paint
-brushes
-q-tips

Here are a few of our finished works!

Questions for Teaching Artists/Art Educators

2010-05-13T09:17:00.007-05:00

I mentioned the Toolbox I went to and the small groups we broke into discussing the problems we might face in the classroom as art educators. I wanted to ask you...what are some of the biggest problems you run into? I'm sure you are not alone. It felt good to hear other people are having some of the same issues as I am. Maybe we can solve them together.

I also had a question for you. Do you ever draw or paint on a child's work? (note: I don't) and as a parent...would you say anything if you noticed this repeatedly happening with your child's work?

Local

2010-05-13T08:45:00.005-05:00

I attended the second installation of The Teaching Artist Toolbox put on by the Arts Council of Oklahoma City. We met at the City Arts Center (who has a really awesome exhibit right now by NYC artist Jason Hackenwerth).

He creates these awesome organic underwater animal like balloon sculptures. Just beautiful. You will never look at balloons the same. City Arts is offering free buses for schools. Give a call to see if you can arrange to share the exhibit with your classrooms. They even offer a teachers resource guide. I know I am going to have to take my boys and create a project around this. Will keep you posted. Visit his website. So inspiring!

The toolbox was productive. We heard from different organizations in the city that utilize teaching artists and educators to share their knowledge and skills with children in all sorts of settings.

Then we had an opportunity to break into small groups and share our strengths, weaknesses and how to solve those problems using our strengths as a group. I met new people and it was very productive. I also won a door prize. Bonus! It was an 80 pc. art set and a class pack of chalk. My boys are really pumped about the chalk.

The Oklahoma Arts Council had a lot of good info and I will be signing up for their conference in October... Art at Work: Creative Strategies and Proven Concepts Oct. 12 & 13 in Norman, OK.

I began my painting for The Children's Center and will share the progress soon.

Don't forget this weekend is ARTini! Did you buy your tickets yet???

Texture Tots

2010-05-10T13:41:00.006-05:00

This class for toddlers ages 15-36 months was all about texture. To begin we gathered in a circle and read a book filled with objects to touch. Then I had several objects out for the children to hold (cotton balls, satin, foil, marbles, rocks, sponges, etc). We talked about how these objects felt and used descriptive words to label them.

We visited the gallery and returned to the classroom to create paintings with lots of lumps and bumps. I mixed tempera paints with sand and a little bit of cornstarch to thicken it up. What fun we had! This is a great sensory building technique that is a bit different than plain old finger paints.

We used craft sticks, combs, and forks to drag through our paint to give us extra texture! Fingers work great too!

For this hands on fun you will need:
-canvas paper to stand up to the weight of paint
-paint
-sand or cornstarch
-craft sticks and/or other objects to apply paint

Here are some of our works.

Mother's Day Brooches

2010-05-08T20:53:00.006-05:00

Happy Mother's Day!

Today my class of kiddos ages 3-5 came in with the favorite men in their lives to make something very special for Mom. We designed a fabric brooch for Mom and pinned it to a hand made card. Very special indeed.

I focused on fabric/textiles and design of this brooch to revolve around the exciting new exhibit at the OKCMOA, Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design. This new exhibit has been years in the making and was put together specially by our curators specifically for the OKCMOA. If you are local, I encourage you to come see this unique new exhibit that will be up through the summer. It has something for everyone of all ages.

This took a bit of prep work. I pre-cut all of the pieces. I cut stiff green felt for the backing and several fabrics of different colors and textures in 3 sizes, the largest circle being the size of the green felt.

The kids worked with their dads to assemble their brooch. They made design choices by deciding which fabrics to use and what order to put them in. When they were fully assembled with fabric, the dads used a yarn needle to attach a medium size flower button through all the layers to the top. To the top I hot glued a little sparkling gem to cover the thread and hot glued a bar pin to the back.

When the brooch was finished we worked on a card to pin our brooch to. We used construction paper and crayons to decorate the card. They wrote their messages and pinned on their brooches and we left the class to visit the exhibit. Perfect little gift full of a lot of love!

For this project you will need:
Brooches:
-Stiff green felt for backing
-fabrics of different colors, textures and sizes.
-flower button
-gem
-needle and DMC thread
-bar bin
-hot glue
-scissors for trimming

For cards:
-construction paper in different colors
-glue stick
-construction paper crayons
-scissors