Magic Snowflakes

Kids love how magical it is to use watercolors over oil pastels or in our case, White Crayola Construction Paper Crayons. This class was full of eager 3 and 4 year olds ready to tackle this project. We try to relate our Museum classes to pieces from the collection or special exhibits. Relating snowflakes was difficult since there are no paintings of snowflakes. However, we broke the snowflakes into lines and that was easy. Lines are everywhere.

I brought the class into circle time around me to talk about lines. I put a big piece of butcher paper on the ground with crayons. I invited the kids to gather around and draw lines. I showed them some (straight, curved, wavy, dashed etc.) Then we practiced pressing our crayons hard to make a dark line. This is needed for our resists to work. We read a quick book, Millions of Snowflakes by Mary McKenna Siddals and lined up to discuss our Museum rules and visit the gallery.



On the 3rd floor we found lines everywhere. We discussed several paintings and then I had the child lead the parent for the final few paintings to tell them about the lines they saw. In the classroom we used our knowledge to cover our paper with snowflakes, lines and other snowy things. This is difficult for them to see using white crayon on white paper, but I assured them the magic would be next. We used our watercolors to cover our paper and our magic lines appeared! So much fun!

You will need:
-White crayon or oil pastels (press firmly!)
-50 lb watercolor paper
-watercolors
-brushes and water

Here are some other examples from my super creative 3 and 4 year olds!

Little Kandinsky's

Nice crowd today at the Museum for Drop-in-Art. I had this class prepared for last weekend, but the Museum was closed due to snow and ice. Today we focused on Kandinsky. At first thought I was going to concentric circles, but I could not find a single photo of it in any book at the library. I thought that would have been easy enough! Oh well. We had plenty of fun and a little more freedom doing it this way.





I had the kids look at a few examples from books. We broke the paintings down into shapes and lines. We talked about organic shapes and geometric shapes. We talked about lines and all the kinds of lines there are.

First I had the children draw lines and shapes using oil pastels. Then we used watercolors to fill in the white space. So much imagination...so much fun!



You will need:
-50 lb watercolor paper
-oil pastels
-watercolors
-brushes

Here are just a few of the wonderful pieces the kids created today!

Winter Resist

This is a fun resist project using oil pastels and watercolors. We used cool colors and the white of the paper and pastels to create snowy winterscapes. First use white oil pastel to make tree branches and snow. Go in with blue pastels to create cedars and other lines. When applying watercolors, the oil pastels will resist and show through. Add salt on top of water colors to create a fun effect! For extra snow, grab a toothbrush and white tempera paint for snowy splatter!

You will need:
-8x10 50 lb water color paper
-oil pastels
-watercolors and brushes
-salt (optional)
-white tempera paint & toothbrush

New Projects

Along with Christmas bells and noisy malls, I can hear the sound of brushstrokes and busy children. Over all that, I hear the constant stream of creative buzz going through my head. I have several projects in the works right now. Here is the latest.



I know you are thinking, what is with the picture of a guitar? Well, I am honored and thrilled to be asked with 2 other OKC artists to paint a western theme guitar for an exhibit at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. The exhibit is titled: The Guitar: Art, Artists and Artisans. It runs Feb 12, 2010 - May 09, 2010. It is going to be outstanding and 3 lucky people will be the proud owners of the local artisan guitars at the end of the exhibit. During the run of the exhibit children will be able to play the guitars and have their picture taken. I hope you will bring your children to take a look! I will be taking mine!

The guitar painting process should be interesting. I am a bit nervous. I don't want to mess it up! :) I am going to sand the guitar and begin painting right away. I will be sure to take photos of the progress!

If you haven't seen the Museum's Winter and Spring Class Schedule, you should take a look! Classes are filling quickly even though I think this is the most offerings they have had since I have been there. It's a big issue! If you have local little ones I hope to see you in the toddler and pre-k classes.

I am also happy to say I will be working with the Metropolitan Library System this summer doing a summer teen art program. We are going to do artist trading cards and I will let you know more when the schedule comes out.

Busy, busy! I have several new projects for children that I will post soon! Have a Creative Day!

Winter Collage

Yesterday at Drop-in-Art we created a winter wonderland in a mixed media collage project. I am the artist for December and we are doing fun things at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

Dec. 12-ornament making (this is another artist, it's my little guy's birthday!)
Dec 19th- Matisse cut out Christmas Cards
Dec 26th-Kandinsky Paintings

Yesterday I encouraged children to think about what it looks like outside in winter. What colors made them think of cold weather, do trees have leaves, etc. We talked about background, foreground, and perspective.



I had two tables set up. One table was the collage table. The children cut and glued their background using bright non fade art paper and scrapbook papers. I showed them they could not only cut paper, but tear paper as well.



After they filled their page they took their piece to the painting table. Here I had black acrylic (the tempera was too transparent) with a variety of brushes for them to paint tree silhouettes in the foreground.

We dried our papers with a hair dryer (this was to help prevent smearing when we move to white paint) and then moved to the splatter station. Here I had white tempera paints set out with toothbrushes and more paintbrushes. This was the magical snowy part. We had a lot of fun and I hope you will too!

You will need:
-14x11 tagboard (heavy paper)
-paper for collage
-scissors
-glue stick
-black acrylic paint
-brushes
-white tempera paint
-toothbrushes
-hairdryer with adult assistance

A few of the child pieces

Turkey Sculptures

Gobble Gobble! We had a blast creating 3-D turkeys in my Little Gobblers class that was for ages 3-5 years old. It was a full class and we got busy right away.

We began by reading this funny book, 10 Fat Turkeys by Tony Johnson. The kids really LOVED this book!

I had turkey bodies prepared and ready for the kids to decorate. I hot glued a medium sized styrofoam ball to a small plate. Then used a small craft stick to attach a small styrofoam ball to make the turkey head.


I gave the kids a few basics to start applying to their bodies. I cut felt triangles, set out feathers and pom poms. Then to help encourage the kids to make choices, I let them go through a line with an empty plate to choose buttons, pipe cleaners, beads and more for their creations.

Here are a few more of our turkeys. Shame my camera ran out of room, they were all great. One even has glasses!











You will need:
-paper plate
-medium styrofoam ball
-small styrofoam ball
-hot glue (for adult to glue turkey body)
-small craft stick
-craft glue for children
-google eyes
-felt pieces
-pom poms, beads, sticky back foam, feathers, papers, pipe cleaners, etc.
-scissors

***note- I think if I do this again, I will pre-paint the styrofoam brown. It would probably take a while to dry, so I am not sure how much time you would need. :) I will do this with my boys this week and try it. I will update!

Happy Halloween!

Louise Bourgeois. Spider, 1997

Pumpkins are carved, costumes are ready. We are excited for Halloween! I have a fun class at the Museum tomorrow called, Spooky Spiders. Spiders in art you say?

Well, the first spider in art I saw (that I can remember) was at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City.
My son was terrified! That is the photo above. So, I started to research other spiders in art and here is some of what I found. Who knew?
Kuniyoshi Utagawa,Minamoto no Yorimitsu Battling an Earth Spider (Minamoto no Yorimitsu Tsuchigumo Taiji), c. 1818-1830

Franz Karl Basler-Kopp, Die Schwarze Spinne(1879(1879)–1937(1937)).

Paolo Veronese (1822-1881) - "The reward" Look close to see the spider and web in the hands of figure.

And sometimes a Spider is not so literal, but created through an artists eyes.



Alexander Calder(1898-1976), Spider.

This is at the MoMA. During our whirlwind tour of the MoMA last June I do not recall seeing this particular Calder piece. Maybe I have seen more spiders in art than originally thought!

Have a Happy Halloween!