D is for Dad

Happy Father's Day to you! This is a fun project that can be done with any letter of the alphabet. Yesterday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art I created these fun painted collages with children ages 3-5.

It was all about Dad as we sat down to begin our creations. We started with a basic paint palette and used q-tips for brushes. I did this so we didn't have to worry about washing out our brushes.



I explained that we were not making pictures of things because the painting was going to be cut up and glued into something new. We worked on filling our entire 9x12 sheet of white paper with paint.
I should mention that I drew a capital letter "D" on the back of each of the papers. They painted on the blank side.





When the entire sheet was full of paint we let it dry while we took a walk to visit the gallery.





Back in the classroom we used a glue stick to glue down a solid sheet of 9x12 white paper onto a piece of 11x14 black tag board. If the paintings were not completely dry we used a hair dryer to speed it along.

Now the kids turn their papers over and see the letter D. They cut it out and glue it on the white paper. Then they cut many shapes from the remaining painting and glue them down. This was a lot of fun and will be a great present for anyone!









You will need:
-Tempera paints
-Paint brushes or q-tips
-2 pieces of heavy white 9x12 paper
-1 piece of 11x14 black tag board
-scissors
-Glue stick
-**Prep work: draw a large letter of your choice on the backside of one of the white pieces of paper. Older children can do this themselves.

Picasso Collage

Picasso. You are probably thinking of his paintings. He created many wonderful collage pieces as well. This was the subject matter I shared for Drop-in Art at the OKCMOA a few weeks ago.

First we looked at a few books and examples of Picasso's work.



Work stations were set up with scissors, glue sticks, newsprint and various papers. (I found really great musical note scrapbook paper at Michaels.)

Our works focused on Guitar.

We began by filling our background with paper and then cut a guitar from a larger piece of paper. We glued it on top and added yarn strings, charcoal and other details. Simple and a lot of fun! This project is great to combine with music!





You will need:
-White posterboard or heavy paper to be the background
-Scissors
-Glue sticks
-Yarn
-Charcoal optional
-Scrap papers
-Larger paper for guitar.

Pop Art Handprints

Little artists ages 15-36 months old gathered with me at the OKCMOA last weekend to explore pop art.

For our creations we focused on our hands. We looked at some books and went into the gallery.



In the classroom everyone had 4 sheets of 8x8 colored cardstock (cut down from 8.5x11) in different colors. I found mine at Michael's Craft Store. We also had 4 smaller pieces of paper that were measured 4.25x5.5 (an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper quartered.) I used the Spectra Fadeless art paper for the small pieces. The sizes can be altered for older children. You might need to allow for larger papers.



The smaller pieces of paper need to be different colors than your larger sheets.

Our first step was to trace the little ones hands on one of the smaller pieces of paper. Stack all the small pieces together and cut the hand shape from the traced hand, giving you four hands that are exactly the same.





We used Crayola construction paper crayons to color our large sheets of paper.





We use a glue stick to glue our paper hands to the center of our larger 8x8 squares.



Now I pass out our sheets of 19x19 poster board. We arrange and glue each of the 8x8 squares onto it.







To finish we use a large flat paint brush to cover the palm of the hand with black tempera paint. We keep our hands very flat and stamp it on top of our cut hands. If it doesn't match up exactly, even better! Stamp your hands 4 times and you are finished!





We made them with white poster board and black poster board. They are both different looks and can be done either way! Enjoy!

You will need:
-Cardstock in 4 colors
-Paper in 4 different colors
-Black paint
-Crayola construction paper crayons
-Scissors
-Glue
-White or black poster board

Here were some of the finished pieces!