Little Monsters

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

Spooky Spiders

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

Toddlers build Venice

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

Sunset in Venice

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