Cupcake Collage

I have been creating all sorts of cakes recently with children at the OKCMOA to celebrate the new exhibition, Poodles & Pastries (and other important matters): New Paintings by Franco Mondini-Ruiz. We are taking inspiration from his paintings and sculptures to create our own unique works using different mediums.

Yesterday we focused on collages in a class for 3-5 year olds and in Drop-in Art where children of all ages come to create.

In the class we talked about sweet treats, especially cupcakes! We visited the gallery to view the new works and read the book, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff.

We shared our favorite paintings and talked about our favorite type of cupcakes.With all of this information in mind we headed back to the classroom to cut, tear and glue our own cupcake creations.

We went over our steps but I have reminders on the board.



Supplies are ready to go:


Tables were supplied with baskets full of scrap paper, tissue paper, sequins, hole punches, glue sticks, yarn, scissors, background paper, 3 pre-cut cupcake bottoms and 3 icing tops. I explained that the tops for the icing could be covered and decorated or used as a template to trace on scrap paper and then the scrap paper could be cut out and used.

The children were instructed to decorate all 3 cupcakes differently. I think we succeeded! So much fun!

First ground our cupcakes with a semi circle. Then glue cupcake bottoms:



Now we start to top our cupcakes and decorate our papers!





You will need:
-9x12 heavy paper for background (we used tagboard)
-Various scrapbook papers
- Brown cardstock for cupcake bottoms (I pre-cut)
-White cardstock for icing tops  (I pre-cut)
-Tissue paper
-Scissors
-Hole punches
-Glue Sticks
-Yarns, sequins,other embellishments

Here are some of our finished creations! Are you hungry yet? :)

Farm Land

Little ones ages 3-5 years old joined me at the OKCMOA for a fun filled class about farms. We were taking a look at farms because of the current exhibition, 1934: A New Deal for Artists. We began the class by taking a look at a small slideshow I put together of real farm landscape photos. We looked at the layers of color and line.

We also talked about farms and why the land on farms is so important. We talked about crops and our favorite grown foods.

To create our beautiful farm landscapes we began by cutting a piece of paper into 4 pieces.



Now we use a paintbrush to paint the pieces yellow, green and brown.



The top section of our paper is the sky and we painted our sky blue with cotton balls and used those cotton balls to make white clouds in the sky.



We visited the gallery while our paint dries. We sat in front of farm paintings and I read the book, Mrs. McNosh and the Great Big Squash.

We return to the classroom and use our glue sticks to put our crops together on a piece of colored construction paper. I compared it to a puzzle, getting the pieces to match up. Now we finish our farm land by adding some details with more paint and q-tips. We add lines and dots and finish them up!



You will need:
-White paper
-Tempera paints/brushes
-Q-tips
-Cotton balls
-Construction paper
-Scissors
-Glue stick

Gears!

This is the lesson plan for a class I was going to teach this weekend but I am doing a mud run and thankfully got another instructor to cover the class for me (Thanks Ms. Amanda!!) The kids love her and I am sure she will add her own creative touch to this class.

Why gears? Well the OKCMOA has an incredible exhibit right now that you might have seen traveling through your town, 1934: A New Deal For Artists. The first part of the exhibit is about industry and what better way to talk about industry than machines and gears!

Gears are fun, they make a lot of things go, just have your kids look at some of their toys. I found some books at our library and this great video.



The first step was some prep work. I actually traced circles of different sizes for each student as they are 3-5 years old. Your students and children can freehand circles or use a template like I did.

Now we cut our circles out. To give our gears teeth we make an even number of little cuts around the circle.
Now we fold back every other tooth.



Set gears aside and prepare background. First we use oil pastels.



Then use a watercolor wash to fill our paper.



Now we use our glue stick to cover the back of our gears and press and hold. You need to use quite a bit of glue and press and hold, hold, hold. I usually tell kids to press, hold and count to five.



Arrange gears over paper and we trimmed a small strip from each side of our final work. We glued down our big piece down on black paper and finished by gluing the strips around the piece with a little space left between the piece and the strips.



That's it! Wish me luck that I don't break a leg at the race! And please don't forget to enter the

Elmer's Giveaway!

For this project you will need:
-Colored cardstock
-White constuction paper
-Black paper for mounting
-Pencils to draw/trace circles
-Glue/gluesticks
-Scissors
-Oil pastels
-Watercolors

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.