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!

Sensory Sculptures

Wow. Where has the time gone? We have been very busy here with my oldest starting Kindergarten this year and our youngest in Preschool. I've been painting away on 3 commissioned paintings, working on 12x12, teaching a few classes and just busy being Mom!

Before we get to one of my latest projects, I want to say thanks to The Crafty Crow for featuring me again! I was excited to see my Cezanne Still Lifes on your site!

Sensory Sculptures was a class for toddlers-ages 15-36 months. We talked about 3-D sculpture and how it is something we can see from all sides. It might look different on each side, so it is fun to walk around the sculpture and see what it looks like from all angles. We learned we can even walk under some sculptures and see them from the top. We looked at two books. To learn about sensory we read,

Feed Matisse's Fish.
To see examples of sculpture we looked at Bob Raczka's 3-D ABC.
In the Museum we looked at our 3rd floor gallery and looked at Modern Sculpture.

Back in the classroom we got busy.



You will need
-6x6 piece of corrugated cardboard
-a handful of air dry clay. I like Crayola.
-pipe cleaners
-beads, buttons, jewels and feathers
-pom-poms
-glue



First we squeezed and manipulated our clay how we wanted it. We placed it on top of the cardboard and began to add pipe cleaners, buttons, beads, etc by pushing them into the clay. We learned we could bend the pipe cleaners and even slide beads onto them. To finish we glued some pom-poms onto our cardboard. The clay will harden within hours and completely overnight.

They turned out really neat and this is a great sensory-motor skill project for kids. Here are some examples.

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!

Charlotte's Web Weavings

I am the July artist for the Museum's Drop in Art program. Come by and see me this month on Saturdays from 1-4! It is FREE with a paid Museum admission. (next week we are making Aztec Suns, 7/25 Van Gogh Sunflowers and 8/1 is Monet Masterpieces) Can't beat that! The Oklahoma City Museum of Art offers this EVERY Saturday! There are different artists year round offering an exciting array of art pieces you can make and take home with you.

Yesterday in honor of E.B. White's Birthday, (author of Charlotte's Web) I thought it would be fun to do spider webs. We made spider web weavings and what fun we had!

I prepped for this by creating the looms ahead of time. You will need.

-paper plates
-yarn
-scissors
-tape
-markers if you want to decorate edges



I precut each plate (I made 17 cuts, about an inch long) around the edges-the important part is that it has to be an ODD number of cuts so your over under pattern will work.

A hole is punched in the center of the plate. (I just stuck a pencil though mine.)

Then to assemble the loom I cut 17 pieces of yarn. Each piece is put down through the center of the plate, though one of the slits and double knotted on the back. Yes, I was a busy girl prepping looms!

To get the kids started we cut a length of yarn color that they wanted to weave with. One end goes through the center hole and is taped to the back to hold it in place. then with the other end you start going over and under each of your "spokes" making a circular pattern. When you want to change colors, cut your yarn and double knot a new color to the end of the old one.

We made little yarn "Charlottes" and double knotted them to our last piece of yarn. To really finish we used markers to cover the white of our plates. Everyone enjoyed making Charlottes!


I think this was a nice project to introduce fiber art to the kids. Although I am a painter myself, I love to use all sorts of things to create!

More Monet

In this toddler class with children from 15 months to 3 years we created our own version of Monet's Water Lilies by using tissue paper and glue. Toddlers always like paint, but I wanted to use a different medium and show the kids something new.

Yesterday I had two classes at the Museum and what a wonderful group of kids it was! I read this fun book by Lois Ehlert called, Planting a Rainbow.
I love Ehlert's books-she is the illustrator as well and I like her bold fun style. We talked about Monet's garden and the colors and things we might find there. We looked at another book I brought showing Monet's work and talked about Water Lilies. In the Museum we found garden scenes and made out way to Monet's work.

In the classroom we used
-11x14 sheet of medium weight watercolor paper
-bleeding tissue paper precut into shapes
-elmer's glue mixed with water-about 1 to 1 ratio
-large flat paintbrushes

The night before I cut a variety of bleeding tissue paper into shapes. Blues and yellow into squares and rectangles. Greens into lily pads and pinks and purples into lily flowers.


Each student had a work station with their own paper, tissue paper, glue and brush.

I had kids first brush their paper with the glue mixture. Then they applied their blue/yellow squares for water. Then lily pads, then flowers-adding glue inbetween to help new layer hold.

We had so much fun. Here are some of their beautiful creations!

Stuffed Fish

Coming back from a week at the beach, we can't help but have ocean, fish and sand on our minds. Here is our first beach related project we did this week. On an 18x24 white piece of paper, folded in half, I drew a fish with a sharpie marker. I cut the fish out (giving you two fish) and we got busy coloring all over it with markers.




Then we taped the edges leaving a small slit at the bottom where we stuffed it with tissue paper.


Afterwards we taped it shut and we swam our fish all over the house!

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.