Love all year 'round

I know, Valentines is over. Boo. I had this class for children ages 3-5 planned long before Valentines Day but it was cancelled due to snow and ice. We made it up today and had so much fun. We used a variety of techniques to create this fun and personal Valentine.

We talked about a few things while in the gallery. We read a book and looked at a painting by Grace Hartigan. If you look real close, there are even a few hearts! Perfect! We wandered through the geometrics and found more Valentine colors and shapes. We talked about the colors red and pink and how you create pink by mixing red and white. We talked about stripes and became stripes by laying on the floor.

Looking around in the galleries is fun but we were ready to create!

First we traced our arm and hand (from elbow up) on paper and cut it out. We set it aside. Then we glued our red piece on top of the blue piece of paper.



I passed out paints with several tools: a fork, q-tip and heart sponge.

First we used the fork to stamp around the blue part of the paper.



Then we cut two hearts from cardstock. One bigger and one a bit smaller. We used the q-tip to make dots around the edge of the bigger heart.





Now we glue our hand and hearts using a glue stick to our red paper. We use our heart sponges to add hearts if we wish. Finally we and add details with chalk pastels.





You will need:
-cardstock in a variety of colors
-glue stick
-pencil
-scissors
-tempera paints (we used white, light pink and hot pink)
-fork, q-tip and cut sponges (optional)

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday to you! Can you believe we are more than halfway through February? This post is formerly known as Feedback Fridays. These are a few projects from around the web that caught my attention today. Have a great weekend!

This is a really neat process that I can't wait to do!
Fractured Vases over at There's a Dragon in my Art Room

I am a sucker for printmaking. I love how they printed on newsprint too!
Blue Dog Printmaking over at Fine Lines

Little ones love resists and this one sure is fun!
Pre-K Lizards over at Lines, Dots and Doodles.

There were so many fun projects this week. I will post more next week. Have a creative weekend everyone!

Super Sculptures

Tiny Tuesdays at the OKCMOA is a program for children ages 2-5. It is come and go art class designed for little ones. This month was filled with super sculpture making fun.



We talked about what sculpture is and got busy.

I had portions of clay in bags ready to go. I had the children warm up the clay in their hands first and create whatever shape they wanted.



Items were on the table ready to go!



Using our fine motor skills we picked little items to stick in our clay and even used our pincer grasp to thread beads on pipe cleaners.



You will need:
-Crayola Air Dry Clay
-Sequins, beads, pipecleaners, feathers, and more
-cardboard to sit clay on

Winter Blues

Don't be blue! I think this is the perfect time to post this project I did with toddlers ages 15-36 months last week at the OKCMOA. I don't know about you my friends but we are snowed in! I am determined not to let cabin fever bring us down and hopefully this little project will chase the blues away for you and your toddler.

We discovered the color blue in the galleries, taking a closer look at painterly abstraction pieces as well as minimalist works by Anne Truitt.

In the classroom we got busy with blue!





We began by rolling dark blue on our papers with brayers. You can buy inexpensive foam rollers at your local craft store. I recommend having some on hand!

Then we used a big feather to add light metallic blue.



We finished with white. I put snowflake foam stickers on floral blocks to create our own stamps.







They turned out quite nice and would look great under a nice white mat and framed to hang in your home all winter long.

You will need:
-Student grade watercolor paper
-Brayers
-Tempera paints: Dark blue, light blue (metallic if you can find it) and white
-Feathers
-Foam stickers for stamping

NAEA Convention in Seattle

One word: Seattle.

I am so excited to be attending the NAEA Convention in Seattle next month! I have never been to Seattle and I know it is going to be a whirlwind of excitement with all that is going on.

Not only am I attending but I am extremely honored, excited and thrilled (THRILLED!) to have been asked to be a presenter. I was thinking about going and then this opportunity came up and the deal was sealed. I will give more details later like where I will be and the time and the title of the program, etc.

The best news though is that I really hope to have the chance to meet some of you there!

Who else is going and what sort of convention advice do you have for me!?

*Convention photo from http://arteducators.org/news/national-convention

Yikes! Stripes!

Children ages 3-5 helped me explore the OKCMOA to find stripes. First we talked about lines. Lines are all around us. Then we took a look at a few books to find stripes. Simply put for them, stripes are lines that are next to each other.

The class is only an hour so we had to get busy. Each child had a paper plate palette with several colors of tempera paints to choose from. I supplied q-tips, one for each color. Q-tips work great for some projects because they are quick and disposable. If we had to wash a brush between all the colors it would have taken forever.



We paint horizontal stripes with our paper set horizontal. I encourage the children not to mix colors at this point, but to put the colors in any order using whatever colors they want.


This child only used two colors. He was proud that he was making a pattern.

We left our painting to dry while we left the classroom to explore the galleries. We viewed several works taking a closer look at pieces by Frank Stella and Gene Davis.

We played a game of I Spy and went back to the classroom to create a new piece using our original painting.



Here we cut our paintings into more, you got it, stripes! We use glue sticks to put our strips of paper on black tag board leaving space between each strip in order to create yet another stripe. I tell them they can lay the cut strips of paper down in whatever order they wish. Some left them in the same order as they were cut and others turned pieces around and mixed it up.







Great use of fine motor skills today for these kids!

So much fun!

You will need:
-Student grade watercolor paper
-Tempera paints
-Palette and q-tips or brushes
-Black tag board several inches wider than size of watercolor paper
-Glue sticks
-Scissors









p.s. I have some pretty exciting news to share with you soon!

Sand Casting

Today at the OKCMOA I shared two kinds of sculptures. We made relief and 3-D sculptures. They are turned out wonderful! This is a project your children will love and an idea you can incorporate with different school subjects as well. Not only is it fun for fossils and Science, but many sculpture artists use molds to create their works and this is an easy way for children to learn about how that is done.

First we started with the relief sculptures. We accomplished these by sand casting, or making molds in sand.

First we start with damp sand in a dish. The sand needs to be a little wet so it will take the imprint of the object.


I told the children to smooth the sand with their hands and choose objects that they wanted to mold. I had a variety of items; little plastic bugs and army men, pony beads, shells etc. You gently push the item into the sand and remove it.





Then I mixed the plaster and poured it over the sand tapping the dish lightly to remove any air bubbles. NOTE: NEVER PUT PLASTER INTO A SINK.

I have several portions of plaster measured out so all I need to do is add water and have the kids start mixing.





The molds need to sit for 30 minutes!

What do we do for 30 minutes?



Make more sculptures! We talked about 3-D sculptures and used scrap paper to create them.













30 minutes is up! Let's check on our sand castings.

They are ready! Gently unmold over a bucket or box, whatever you have on hand. You can re-use the sand. Use your hands and then a paint brush to lightly brush away the sand away revealing the items you pressed in the sand. The kids were amazed!



















For sand casting you will need:
-damp sand
-deep plate
-plaster of paris, water and mixing bowls and disposable spoon
-items to mold

For paper sculptures you will need:
-paper
-scissors
-glue sticks
-color tape optional