Splatter Painted "Spotted Owls"

I have yet to meet a child, or adult for that matter, who didn't love the process of splatter painting. I wanted to come up with a project that would combine the the freedom of splatter painting with a representational subject matter. I was inspired by the torn paper owls at Deep Space Sparkle. I added the element of splattering 2 pieces of black construction paper with white paint and one white paper with black paint. It is up to each child how they would like to divide their textured paper. A simple head shape can be drawn on the back of one of the papers and the body shape on another. These are cut out and glued to a dark blue construction paper background. After the wing shapes have been drawn, they can be filled in with the remainder of the paper using small torn pieces. Here I used the black for the majority of the wings and the white at the tips. Eyes, ears and beaks are added with cut paper, and feet, branch and moon and are drawn with oil pastel. Each child can create their own one of a kind "spotted owl"!

Painted Scarves

This art session, I promised a couple handmade gifts for the children to give for the holidays, in addition to my usual art lessons. Thank goodness for a fabulous post by "That Artist Woman" for hand painted scarves. For this project we used a sheer lining fabric. Our scarves measured about 8" X 58", which is long enough to tie in a number of ways. They can be hemmed prior or after painting. Fortunately for me, my mother kindly hemmed each one by hand (although this can be done by machine). I provided a variety of colors of acrylic craft paint diluted with water to an inky consistency. This gives a wonderful watercolor-like effect. After they are dry, they should be delicately washed with a little detergent and fabric softener (which will fade the paint slightly).

I am thrilled with the wide range of results of this project. Some opted to paint stripes or polka dots and some went for a more spontaneous abstract effect. I even had a 5 year old boy who without hesitation, proceeded to paint what looks very much like Kandinsky's "Squares with Concentric Circles." Their Moms will truly cherish these one of a kind wearable works of art!

Colorful Abstract Winter Trees

"Art Projects for Kids" has a wonderful and simple abstract winter tree lesson. I decided to add the extra element of decoupaging colored tissue for the trees. After a rectangle of tissued posterboard is dry, it can be cut into the triangle tree shapes. These are glued onto watercolor paper that has been divided using oil pastel or crayon and then watercolor washed into three different sections as well as a foreground. With an oil pastel lines and "v" shapes can be drawn on the trees. Lastly a hole puncher is used to add the white snowfall effect. The 2 colorful pieces below were done by a kindergartener and a 2nd grader.

Kindergarten Snowmen

It's late November and the weather forecast for Southern California: sunny and in the high 70's. It's time to create some snowmen! When you live in such a warm climate, I think the kids appreciate these type of winter time art projects even more. I liked the close up, cropped perspective snowman lesson from Deep Space Sparkle. After drawing our snomen in oil pastel, the children painted them with tempera paints. They really liked the final step of using a q-tip dipped in white to create falling snowflakes.

Radial Symmetry Designs

The wonderful book, "Dynamic Art Projects for Children" has a great lesson in radial symmetry. This type of design refers to repeating patterns that converge to a center point. Radial symmetry can be seen in the dome of the U.S. capitol building, the stained glass windows of many European cathedrals, Islamic Arabesque tiles, and even in nature's flowers and snowflakes. To create your own design, this project requires a A/B pattern label process where the image is rotated around 180 degrees to create a new design where points converge in the middle, creating a striking design. The top design shows my original 6" drawing. I transferred it to a 12" by 12" paper and repeated the design all the way around. I got a little carried away with detail, but the final product colored in marker is quite nice. I did a second simpler design which I think is also very pretty and more approachable for my students. I decided to introduce my 2nd and 3rd graders(in addition to my older elementary children) to this wonderful and universal form of design. Here is some of their work at various stages of completion.

Personal Work

I haven't spent much time on my own personal work lately. On any given day I will be trying out the perfect Kindergarten project or something new and different for my 2nd and 3rd graders. When I am creating work for myself, I like to do a variety of pieces: life size people in charcoal, chalk pastel, and watercolor. I love nothing better than tapping into that right brain mode, losing track of time and getting lost in a painting or drawing.

Thanksgiving Turkeys

I tend to steer clear of these type of holiday themed projects, only because I assume they are doing a lot in school. I went against my better judgement and decided to do these turkeys based on a step-by-step drawing lesson from A.P.F.K. "How many turkey art projects have you done this month in school?", I asked my group of Kindergarteners. "3, 4!" they shouted. Oh well. "These turkeys will be different!" (No painted hand prints here.) After a step by step lesson, I instructed them to load their brush with the autumn colors: yellow, orange, red and brown. No need to clean your brush, just go to the next color - a la Impressionism. At pick-up one Mom was thrilled, "Oh great, we don't have any Thanksgiving artwork in the house!" (Little does she know, there are 3 or 4 more to follow :) )