Wire Sculpture Cars

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

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

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

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

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!