Marble Rolling Abstract Art

It was a rainy day today but that did not keep my little artists away from the OKCMOA! Two back-to- back classes filled with toddlers ages 15-36 months old came in to create with me this morning.

We gathered around to read Mouse Paint and talked about color and friendships.

Our focus today was abstract expressionism. Abstract Expressionism is non-representational work in which an artist expresses themselves through form and color. This style was typically broken up into two areas, action painters and color field painters. We were all about action today.



The friendship part came into our discussion through the artists Alfonso Ossorio and Jackson Pollock. I talked about Pollock because almost everyone seems to know his work. I can then relate and tell a story about how Pollock's work related to and influenced Ossorio. We viewed Ossorio from our collection today and visited our 3rd floor galleries to view other action style paintings. (my classes are parent/child so I try to incorporate information for everyone!)

Friendships also occur between colors. Placing certain colors next to each other creates a certain mood, a feeling-whether good or bad! We can also mix our colors to create new friends and it is so much fun. We found all of our colors in the galleries and children get excited to see shapes and share their new knowledge with their parents and myself.



At our work table I had stations set up with paper taped in foil cake pans-deeper pans are better. Then I had three small bowls with paint and a small bowl with marbles. We dipped marbles in the paint and dropped them into our pans. By shaking our pans our marbles rolled all around! We had lots of shaking, lots of action today!







To finish our pieces we placed our painted works on a piece of black construction paper. This made our artwork looked matted and they are definitely ready to frame. I hope you enjoy this not so new but fun project.





You will need:
-foil pans
-white paper
-paint (I used blue, yellow and red tempera paints)
-marbles
-tape
-black construction paper
-glue stick

Little Leprechauns

It was a fine couple of classes at the OKCMOA on Saturday morning to celebrate the coming of St. Patrick's Day. My little leprechauns ages 15-36 months arrived wearing green and were ready to visit the galleries and create! I began the class by inviting the kids to come sit on a big piece of green paper to read our story, The Luckiest St. Patrick's Day Ever.
After that I had a color experiment ready to demonstrate. I squeezed yellow and blue paint on a paper plate and talked about making green. I grabbed my paintbrush and slowly mixed the colors and OOH! AAH! Green!

Green was our color of the day and we visited the 3rd floor gallery to find the color of green in many shades and shapes. The final piece we looked at was a sculpture from the Vogel Collection that had a shamrock on it. It was an I spy object and was a good finishing moment to bid the gallery goodbye and head back down to the classroom to create our St. Patrick's Paintings.

I had paper plates with blue and yellow paint ready for the kids to mix with a paintbrush and put down on their paper. The fun part about this was to watch the different colors of green the toddlers made. Some was more yellow, some more blue. This made each piece even more unique.

Then I gave everyone a squeeze of kelly green paint and a small sponge. I like for the children to see that we can paint with different things and for ones this small it helps cover the paper a bit faster.

Our final color was white. I gave everyone a small amount of white paint and a feather to use to apply it. Everyone LOVED the feather. I used a more stiff craft feather-I found them at Walmart but I am sure you can get them anywhere.



To finish our St. Patty Paintings we used some leprechaun dust. I found shamrock, pot of gold, and star glitter at Michael's Craft Store. We sprinkled that on to complete our pieces! So much fun!

You will need:
-student grade watercolor paper
-yellow, blue, green and white tempera paints
-brush
-sponge
-feather
-glitter

Here are some of our toddler creations!

Toddlers Paint Valentines

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope you all are enjoying this day as much as I am. Yesterday was a busy day at the OKCMOA. I started my morning with a great group of eager toddlers. We painted with "found objects."

When coming up with project ideas for my classes we are encouraged to focus on relating our project ideas to something from the permanent collection or our visiting exhibit. I have mentioned that Jason Peters is our awesome exhibit right now. I have had so much fun leading the kids through this and the parents love it too. It's fresh, exciting and I love to watch the faces of our visitors. They enter and mouths drop! Peters uses found objects for his sculptures. For this class we used found objects to paint with.

Sometimes we listen to music. I have a kid playlist that gets us moving, we start with The Imagination Movers, Paint the Day Away. I find all my music on iTunes. We also groove to The Laurie Berkner Band, The Wiggles, Raffi and more.



First my toddlers used a brayer to roll on pink paint. Most of the kids have never used a brayer. They loved to roll paint! We let this first step dry and visited the exhibit. When we returned to the classroom we used a heart sponge to stamp red hearts. (I cut heart shapes from kitchen sponges.) I have learned that sometimes it is easiest to give the kids one color at a time and with my small classes this works great.

Finally we used forks. I tell them this is to stamp, not to eat, and I go around to each child and dip the fork and show them we "stamp, stamp, stamp." They love repetition and making a word connection with motion. (like brush, brush, brush...dot, dot, dot, you get the idea) We used aqua paint for that and the fork creates neat little lines. We had so much fun!

You will need:
-drawing paper
-brayer
-3 paint colors
-sponge cut to shape
-fork

Here are some of our works!

Fall Finger Leaves

In this fun class for ages 15-36 months we focused on the beginning of fall. We looked at a few books and talked about trees and how the color of the leaves are going to start changing.
I had wanted Lois Ehlert's Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf but all copies were checked out of ALL local libraries! I ordered it from Amazon so I will have it for our collection here at the house. I really enjoy all of Ehlert's books, so do my boys.

We talked about trees, fall colors and found them in the museum. In the class we rolled up our sleeves to create our own Ode to Fall-via fingertips, paint, glue and paper. We glued the brown strips to make trunks and used our fingers and hands to create fall foliage. (Getting hands in paint is a great sensory building experience.)



You will need:
-14x11 piece of student grade watercolor paper
-strips of brown construction paper
-red, yellow, orange washable paint
-glue

While our pieces dried we sang a little song to movement: (tune of London Bridge)

autumn leaves are falling down,
falling down,
falling down

autumn leaves are falling down,
red,
gold,
and brown.

So much fun!

Cezanne Still Lifes

This was a class for ages 3-5 years old. With a little direction, they produced wonderful pieces!

First we learned a little about Cezanne and what a still life is. They thought it was funny that artists often used what was around them, even things from their ice box, or shoes from their closet as subject matter for paintings.

We read a funny book called, Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett.


I set up a white bowl filled with oranges on blue fabric at the center of the table.




Supplies were:
-pencil
-limited paint palette
-3 brushes (I used 3 as a time saver)
-paper
-still life

I first had the kids establish a grounding point for the bowl by drawing a line from left to right across their papers.

Then they studied the shape of the bowl and drew it along with the oranges. We filled in our background using blue for the cloth (blow the line) and tan for above the line. At this point we took a break to let this step dry and visit the exhibit.



On our return we painted our bowls and oranges, adding a few highlights to complete our works!

Little Water Lilies

Before I get started I am watching the best documentary right now about 3 men running across the Sahara Desert. It is fascinating. They are at day 63 right now-totalling already running 58 marathons. Amazing what the human body can do.

About Monet though. I had a wonderful class with kids ages 3-5. We talked about Monet and his garden. We spoke about what might be in a garden-flowers, trees, and ponds. What are in some ponds? Lily pads. We talked about frogs living in the pond jumping on the lily pads. The kids were excited to get started.

I had everyone set up with a palette of blue, purple and white paint. We talked about filling up our paper with water so the frogs would have a lot of water to swim and jump around in. They filled the paper up nice and we walked through the Museum to look at the impressionist part of the exhibit. The children seemed to enjoy it but were ready to return to the classroom to finish our paintings.





Now I go around and give everyone green paint. They add lily pads. When they are almost finished, I give them a small brush and red paint. They add flowers and are finished! I think everyone did a great job. I love to see how all the pieces are so different. We took time when everyone was finished to walk around and look at what everyone did. So much fun. I am looking forward to a different spin on this class with my toddler class in 2 weeks.





Just to touch again on the doc, Running the Sahara. It just ended. Wow. 111 days over 4,300 miles. Amazing.

Flag Day Fun

Saturday we had so much fun creating flag paintings in honor of Flag Day which was yesterday, June 14. The piece above is 3 Flags by Jasper Johns and it was the inspiration for our own creations.

In this Pre-K class for ages 3-5 we read Meet Our Flag, Old Glory by April Jones Prince. Illustrated with a fun collage technique by Joan Paley. This book would also be great for the 4th of July.
I talked about flags in artwork and we looked at several painting with flags, many by Childe Hassam from this book, Childe Hassam, American Impressionist.Then we talked about Jasper Johns and looked at some of his work from this book. Jasper Johns, Modern Masters.
In the gallery we found red, white and blue. In the classroom I set up a little flag at everyone's station. Everyone had 3 pieces of paper, red white and blue paints, brushes and imagination.

Here are some of the finished pieces!