African Art Projects For Children

The ancient African art mainly consisted of masks and figures that were used for various religious ceremonies. Apart from these, the other artforms included sculptures, paintings and decorative objects. The decorative objects mostly included textiles and everyday tools, which formed an integral part of all African cultures. African art has always been appreciated for its intrinsic aesthetic value. It comprises of an enormous collection of rock paintings and sculptures that are considered to be their greatest achievements. Most of the artwork in Africa has tremendous visual appeal and inspires a number of children's art projects in schools. Art teachers take various African art pieces as reference subjects.

The easiest African art project for children is to create a paper flag of one of the countries in Africa. Apart from wood, African sculptures were made from a variety of other materials, such as mud, beads, ivory, terracotta, metal and stone. Children can create replicas from ivory soap bars. Clay can also be used to create small figures, which can further be painted with gold acrylic, to decorate them. The Zulu tribe in Zimbabwe has been writing letters, using beads since a very long time. The cryptic messages and proverbs in these letters depend on the design, color and placement of beads. These letters are also good topics for art projects for children. The red, black and white shields of Kenya can be easily made of cardboard, paint, bells, shells and paint.

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Fun DIY Art Projects For Your Family

One of the primary problems that many parents face today is how to bring back the quality time with children that was lost with the advent of dual jobs and many long hours of overtime in the office, which has been heightened especially in the face of the global financial crisis and the major recession affecting almost every household in the country. If you are one of the parents who are looking for ways to bridge the growing gap between you and your children, home art projects may be the solution you are looking for.

DIY art options

There are various do-it-yourself home art projects that can be done inside the home. Contrary to popular belief, these art projects are also ideal for people looking for affordable ways to reconnect with the family on a budget. With the right project ideas, there is no need for anyone to begin spending large amounts of money on professional quality paints and artists brushes that can leave gaping holes in any average household's budget. Here are some of the best do-it-yourself home art projects that you can try out for yourself.

Patriotic cards
Whether for the fourth of July or simply as a year-round sign of you and your country's love for the motherland, patriotic cards are one of the beginner's home art projects that you can look into. Using classic American themes ranging from the flag to the good old American eagle, the patriotic card is both easy to use and a hands-on activity that is perfect for your young children. To do this, the only that you need are some art papers, glue, a pair of scissors, and some marking pen for drawing in the details of your project. One of the basics is to draw a card in the image of a flag. Let your children explore their creative side through the use of various art elements to decorate the card, aside from the main motif of the flag. For very young children, help them out in using the scissors for safety.

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Preschool Art Projects - Under the Sea

Under the Sea

No preschool curriculum is complete without a wide variety of art projects. Arts and crafts give children a method of expressing themselves creatively, as well as allowing them to develop fine motor skills such as cutting, pasting, and drawing. Certain themes, such as the ocean and the creatures that live in it, lend themselves perfectly to preschool art projects.

Ocean life is full of fun shapes and colors which are replicated in these preschool art projects. First, here's a project where the kids create stained glass ocean animals by using tissue paper with contact paper or waxed paper.

Look through books about the ocean and its life forms for inspiration first before letting the children create their own sea creature forms from contact paper or waxed paper. Once they have cut out their shape, decorate the shapes with tissue paper to create a stained glass effect. Remember to use glue if waxed paper is being used.

Create your own Aquarium!

In conjunction with the ocean life theme, organize a field trip to a local zoo or aquarium to observe fish in their habitat. After the field trip, try one of these preschool art projects on fish and aquariums.

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Watercolor Art Projects For Your Kids

When you are looking for an idea for something productive to do with your child, then maybe being involved with an art project is the answer. This kind of art is a simple craft that will be fun for you and your child to do together. There are a few watercolor art projects for kids to do.

The watercolors are your best choice for kids to be involved with as this can become quite messy and the watercolor paint can be easily washed off. First decide just what it is you will want to make. Start the project by first drawing the design or image with the use of a crayon or even a marker on a sheet of art paper. Then dip the brush into water and go on to wet the brush and then run the brush over the entire paper. Now you can begin to paint on the art paper. The paint shall fill everywhere other then the area that was drawn with the marker or crayon.

Another idea it to use a rectangular sheet of art paper and put four blobs of four colors in the corners of the paper. Then your child can use his or her fingers and begin to spread the colors, two blobs at a time in anyway they want to create some kind of design and ending it when meeting in the center of the paper.

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Easy and Fun Tissue Paper Crafts for Kids

A rainy day is a great opportunity to get out the arts and crafts boxes and spend time with the kids making personalized gifts for friends and family. Nothing expresses love as well as a homemade card or a giant tissue paper flower. Many artists choose tissue for art projects because it can be easily shaped and cut into patterns for multiple craft projects.

This art medium is perfect for young kids as it is nontoxic and perfectly safe, with no sharp corners to cut into tender fingers. Tissue can be purchased in a wide variety of color hues and sizes. It is recommended that a giant package of tissue paper be bought because there are so many craft ideas tissue can be used for.

Tissue paper is popular with children and parents alike because it can be torn or ripped easily, avoiding the necessary use of scissors for art projects. The colors are bright and the tissue paper is very easy to handle for small fingers. Art projects for kid to create with tissue paper include beautiful and colorful tissue paper flowers.

These flowers can be given away as gifts or tied together to make a chain of colorful flashy paper tissue flowers to hang in their room as flower swag. To make a tissue paper flower, take a piece of paper and gently scrunch it into a fan-like shape. Holding the tissue pinch in the center, tie the folded paper with a pipe cleaner, preferably the same color as the tissue paper. Fan out the tissue paper to reveal a beautiful flower.

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Fun Art Projects for Kids

Many children absolutely love creating art. Crafting, drawing, and painting are more than just enjoyable to kids - they are also beneficial for helping improve small muscle skills and hand -eye coordination. Experience with the arts at a young age will also nurture an appreciation for art that your child will carry into adulthood. Try this pair of simple art project ideas if you want to give your child a creative and enjoyable opportunity to also develop several different skills.

Hand Tracing Creations

When you want an art project that is enjoyable, quick, and affordable, it is hard to find one that would be better than hand tracing. The only materials you will need are crayons, paper, and the hand of your child. Begin by having your child trace their hand on a piece of paper with one of the crayons. Next, let their creativity run wild by transforming the hand tracing into something unique. Many people will remember this activity at school during the Thanksgiving season when they were taught to transform their hand tracings into a Thanksgiving turkey, but there are many other artistic possibilities. How about letting the fingers be spiked hair, and drawing a silly face on the palm place of the tracing? Or try turning the paper upside down so that the fingers of the tracing can look like the legs of an insect, or any manner of scary creation. Hand Art is an affordable and imaginative option for an art day. And make sure you and your child select their most loved couple of creations so that they can be displayed in picture frames in your home.

"Tie Dye" with Paper Towels

With a roll of plain paper towels, water, several rubber bands or grocery "twist-ties", a handful of paper clips, some small bowls and a watercolor paint set, your children can make a myriad of tie dye art. Begin by protecting the tabletop where you are working with some sort of vinyl or plastic tablecloth. Next, fold one of the paper towels in a fan-fold alternating pattern. Take rubber bands, twisty -ties or paper clips and attach them in various places along the paper folds. Then, pour a little water into each of the small bowls. With the paintbrush and watercolor paint set, stain each bowl of water with a different color. Dip the various edges of the folds of the paper towel in the bowls of colored water.

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My Last-Minute Mother’s Day Gift

My father scanned our family photos last year, and I’ve been dying to play around with them ever since. This image had lost a lot of it’s original color, but I had fun handpainting it back in. (Just for the record, I'm the cute one in the chair.)

1. I printed my scanned photo onto watercolor paper, using my Epson Photo 1440 printer. A high-resolution setting is best to get a nice, bright image.
2. I used Prismacolor® Watercolor pencils to add color to the picture edges. Try to match the colors and shapes that are started in the photo. Color can be added inside the picture as well, as I did with the sky and skin tones.
3. Brush the drawing with water to turn it into a painting.

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Mother’s Day “Pancake Recipe”

This is a compilation of what my 1st and 2nd grade students wrote today, when I asked them how they would make pancakes. The only thing is, they have no idea how cute their writing is!

1. Students glued a photo of pancakes to their paper (download here), and drew a fancy border around the outside.

2. The PANCAKE title was to be written in block letters. I drew a sample on the board for them to follow. The letters and border are colored in with pencil, preferably using colors already in the photo.

3. Following prompts such as “Mix _____ cups of ______. Add _________. Bake / cook for _____ minutes at __________ degrees”, students fill in their own answers. Or better yet, add some other steps. Be prepared to giggle at their responses!

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Metal Tooling Mother’s Day Card

Gold metal tooling is great material for making textured art. Add Sharpie markers and you have a very expensive looking Mother’s Day card.

1. Each student gets a 3" x 5" piece of gold tooling, and place it on a few layers of newspaper. They draw firmly with a dull pencil to engrave the image.

2. Sharpie markers are used to color it in.

3. The final art may be mounted on a 6" x 9" folded card using double-sided tape. I recommend a quality card stock because this card is a keeper.

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Mother’s Day Collage Card

This is a simple layout, but needs to be done neatly to make it look nice. My secret is to use glue sticks to make the tissue paper lay smooth and flat.

1. Students use scissors to cut out the flower and vase shapes from blue, green, pink and yellow tissue paper.
2. Glue is spread all over the front of a folded card and the tissue pieces are attached. Don’t worry about any excess glue as it will not be sticky when dry. To make all the edges lay flat, students gently rub a bit of glue over the top of each piece.

3. Messages are added in crayon on the front and inside the card.

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Tissue Paper Flowers for Mother’s Day

Need a pretty but inexpensive project for Mother’s Day? All you need is an old baby food jar, tissue paper, white glue and a couple of green pipe cleaners.

1. Tear blue tissue paper into small little strips. Make a 50/50 mix of white glue and water, brush on the outside of a baby food jar, and apply overlapping strips of tissue paper. Continue until the jar is covered. Brush a final layer of mixture over all to smooth the surface before it dries. Let dry.

2. My inspiration for the flowers comes from “Tissue Paper Flowers” by the editors of Klutz. Proportion of the flowers to the jar is important, so I’ve made a pattern that you can download HERE. You make a small green folded “nubs” on one ends of the pipecleaners, slide on two yellow circles, and two white star flowers. Use a small amount of clay or playdough inside the jar to support the stems.

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How to Draw a Peacock

Learning to draw radial symmetry is a CA Visual Arts standard, and is precisely what is called for in drawing this colorful peacock. I’m in love with this kinder’s drawing, in which she chose to use flowers to cap the feathers, instead of ovals.

1. Starting with a horizontal watercolor paper, students draw half a circle at the bottom.

2. A head with neck is added, and a beak and eye.

3. Oval feathers with lines are drawn at 9, 12, and 3 o’clock.

4. More feathers are added at 10, 11, 1 and 2 o’clock.

5. One more feather is added between each already drawn. A black permanent marker is used to trace all the pencil lines.

6. Crayon lines are added to the feathers. When complete, watercolor paint is used to color the peacock body and the background.

Thanks to Katharine, a kinder, who made this amazing peacock. I can’t get over her flower-topped feathers... nothing short of brilliant if you ask me.

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Mother’s Day Art Project

I’ve used this card for kinders for several years and I'm still surprised at how nice they look, especially when colored with bright patterns.
1. Start with large white construction paper (12" x 18") and cut it in half to make panels of 6" x 18". Fold the panels into thirds to make a card that measures 6" x 6". Arrange folds so that the card makes a “Z”. Cut lots of posterboard “M” and “O” block letters for the students to trace. To save time, I left the “O” without the center cut out, and asked the students to just draw their own.

2. The students are to center the letters in each panel, trace with a pencil, and then with a black marker. The students colored in a different pattern in each letter, and then different colors for the background.

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Russian Cathedral Drawing

St. Basil’s is a famous cathedral in Russia, which was originally designed as a cluster of chapels. It’s unique architecture manages to look both old and new at the same time.

1. For this lesson, I led the students in setting up their basic building shapes, but then gave them THIS color photo for a guide. Starting with letter size paper, they drew a large rectangle in the middle. An “onion” shape was added on top.

2. A somewhat shorter rectangle is attached to the left and right. A curved top with ball is added.

3. Now the fun part – lots of curves and angles and swirls are added to decorate the entire building.

4. When the drawing is complete, all the lines are traced with a black Sharpie marker and the shapes are colored in with crayon.

Thanks so much to Keana A., a 1st grader who let me share her drawing. Can you tell she comes from an artistic family?

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Hand-Colored Mother’s Day Card

If you would like to make a homemade Mother’s Day card, I’ve collected a bunch of decorative letters from clipartETC.com and arranged them on a jpeg file that you can just print and color.

1. Click on the image above to download my prepared jpeg file. Print on a sheet of heavy 8.5" x 11" paper with the landscape setting and all footers removed.

2. Use colored pencils to fill in the letters.

3. If you would like to make it into a card, tape to another paper and write a message inside.

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Klimt’s Tree of Life Mural

Gustav Klimt was a Viennese painter who was perhaps best-known for his love of translucent, mosaic colors and forms, and curling background lines and patterns. His “Tree of Life” painting is a favorite of mine.

This template contains 30 pages and measures 48"x 48" when complete. Click HERE to see a preview of the blank template pages. You can purchase my pdf file with instructions and color guide for just $5. Click the “Add to Cart” button to make your payment via Paypal and receive immediate download instructions.

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Happy Earth Day Coloring Page

I found this really great free font called Wild Wood at Font.DownloadAtoZ and made a quick coloring page for those still celebrating Earth Day today. I can’t promise that all the little twigs and leaves will be easy to color, but I'm sure it will look great when it’s done. You can download your blank template HERE. Have fun!

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Magazine Color Collage

Collage is a French word which means “glue.” The term was coined by Braque and Picasso in the beginning of the 20th century, when collage became a distinctive part of modern art.

1. I've found this to be a really good project for kinders and 1st graders. They enjoy the hunt for images, and benefit from some simple guidelines. Each student needs a couple of magazines, white paper, scissors and glue stick. They are to choose one color, and then collect as many different objects or swatches in that color as possible.
3. All of the images are glued onto the white paper, with the goal of overlapping and filling it up. This is really simple, but the fact that each picture will have a theme really unifies the images and can create some stunning artwork. Plus, everyone is getting lots of scissors cutting practice, without really thinking about it!
CA Visual Art Standard: Creative Expression, Kindergarten
2.3 Make a collage with cut or torn paper shapes/forms.

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Fruity People Collage

One CA Visual Art Standard centers around how to create feelings with one’s own artwork. This book “How Are You Peeling?” is full of some very creative photographs of fruit and vegetables, all made to reflect a wide variety of emotions. Reading it first helps to make connections that certain shapes can look a lot like faces, when using one’s imagination.

1. I’ve collected some photographs of fruit and vegetables, the low resolution type that are free for comp making. You can download the 2-page file HERE. Print as many copies as needed on inkjet paper.

2. I recommend that the students start by choosing a large shape to make the head, then the body, legs, arms, and finally details on top.

3. After all the body parts are collected and laid out, they are glued down with a glue stick.

CA Arts Standard: Creative Expression. 

2.5 Use lines in drawings and paintings to express feelings.

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Recycled Magazine Bowls

In honor of Earth Day, I’m having a Recycle Art Week at my school. These bowls are fun to make and truly about reusing that which just ends up in the trash.

1. Every student needs a 1" wide x 12" cardboard stick, scotch tape (preferably in a dispenser) and a magazine. To begin, students are to tear out magazine pages, taking care to choose those with the most color. The students then place the stick at a corner of a page and wrap the paper around it as shown in the diagram. Careful folding and creasing helps. When the page is completely wrapped around the stick, pull the stick out from one side. Tape the rolled paper corner down so it doesn't unwrap.

2. The first strip needs to be rolled up tightly, much like a tape measure is rolled. When finished, tape the end to itself so it doesn't come apart.

3. To continue, each new strip is attached with tape where the last one ended and wrapped to the growing roll until it is the size that is desired. When complete, hold the flat roll and shape it into a bowl. Apply a generous coat of Mod Podge on one side and let dry. Repeat for the remaining side.

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CD Case Diorama

Here’s one more recycle project – using a CD case, cardboard boxes, and dried beans.

1. Collect clean cardboard packages, such as those used for cereal, crackers, pencils and markers. Open them up and cut out simple vehicle shapes, along with mountains, trees and sun.

2. Glue a small amount of dried beans to the inside of a clear CD case with white glue.

3. I prefer double-stick tape to attach the cardboard to the CD as it keeps the shapes lying flat.

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Egg Decorating from Macedonia

Lila Arsova, a teacher from Veles, Macedonija, recently sent me this wonderful series of photos showing how she decorated her eggs with some very colorful springtime napkins. I think her step-by-step pictures say it all, and cross any language barrier that might come between us. I personally have never seen any treatment quite like this, and am amazed at how beautiful the eggs are, not to mention the lovely documentation of them. Thank you Lila for taking time out to share your amazing creativity.
Note: I believe that the photos pretty clearly demonstrate the process, with the exception that Lila’s uses egg white to attach the napkin to the egg. What a great way to keep the process all natural.

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Student Art from Arizona

This art comes from Arizona, where Elizabeth White taught her second graders how to make shades of red and blue, and then painted my Lincoln and Washington mural. I love the handpainted look of them, and would one day like to try this myself. Thank you for sharing Elizabeth, and please thank your talented students too!

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Recycled Mini Books

This is good for Earth Day or anytime you wish to make a recycling project. I’ve started to save cereal and pasta boxes all year round so that I have a good stash whenever I need one.
1. For a kindergarten class, I took clean cardboard boxes (like cereal or pasta) opened them up to lie flat, and cut them on the fold to a 3.5" wide x 5" tall rectangle using a paper cutter. Cut on an edge that already folds flat so that the “book” opens to a 7" x 5" size.
2. Take any old leftover paper blank paper, fold it and cut to the same dimension as the cardboard.
3. Place the blank paper inside the cardboard and staple at least twice on the outside of the spine so that the sharp points of the staples are hidden on the inside.
4. NOW, you can give these to kids and have them do any number of activities, including making "nonsense" collage drawings as shown. Older student such as 3rd to 5th could staple the books together. And if you are able to get one of those extended staplers, you can make books that are much larger.

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Flower Watercolor Painting

Almost every elementary student can draw a flower, but are they aware of the many different shapes and sizes that exist? For this project, I found a lovely simple flower drawing to copy, originating from Geninne’s Art Blog.

1. I started by drawing a large collection of flowers on my board, based on the artwork from Geninne shown HERE. Students first drew the grass line in pencil and added at least three large flowers spaced evenly across the page. Thet then filled in the spaces with smaller flowers.

2. The students traced their artwork with a black permanent marker.

3. The flowers and grass were painted in with a variety of liquid watercolor paints. Dick Blick Watercolor paints are still my favorite.

4.  The sky was painted blue leaving a white halo around all of the flowers. The halo keeps the colors from running together while brightening up the painting as well.

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How to Draw a Hen and Chicks

I’m always looking for simple drawing ideas that are then easy to shade. This one works and makes a pretty picture too.

1. On a 9" x 12" piece of paper, the students draw a large circle for the hen body and then a small one for it’s head as shown.
2. The head is connected to the body with a neck, and a tail and legs are added.
3. Details are drawn on the hen head and a wing is drawn on the body. Two or more half-circles are added (wherever there is room) to make the chicks.
4. Heads and legs are added to the chicks.
5. All lines are traced with a black Sharpie and colored in with pastels. My favorite are the Portfolio® 24-pack oil pastels. Older students may add shadows by shading with a bit of gray.

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Maasai African Portraits

The Maasai people of African are located in Kenya. Their distinctive clothing and head dress make them among the most well known of all African tribes. A marker drawing on a piece of madras pattern tissue paper is one way to pay tribute to their fascinating culture.

1. After discussing a bit about the Maasai, I recommend that students first draw their portraits on a piece of drawing paper. Beginning with a large oval and neck, the stylized eyes, nose and mouth are added. Neck ware, headbands and feathers may be included too.

2. After the drawing is done, a matching size piece of madras pattern tissue paper is taped on the front, and the portrait lines are traced onto the tissue. Next the lines are all traced with Sharpie markers, some with fat and some with thin tip. I find that a variety of line weights add interest to artwork.

3. Lastly, the face is filled in with marker, leaving a bit of space around the eyebrow and nose line so they don’t disappear.

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Paper Mache Earth

The base for this paper mache globe is a beach ball. It gave the necessary round shape and was pretty sturdy to work with as well.

Session 1: I had my students place long strips of newspaper (about 10" x 3") covered in mache across a 14" beach ball. Large bowls were placed under the balls to keep them from rolling around. Some students covered the entire beach ball all in one layer, some got about 3/4 done. When drying, I had some issues with the beach balls deflating a bit, making them look lopsided. Not good. But I found that if I placed them in the sun for a few hours, the heat reinflated them. (The science lesson is a bonus.)
Session 2: Just like the first, with an emphasis on placing newspaper strips in the opposite direction to add strength.
Sessions 3: Students mached blank newsprint over the entire globe to cover all the type.
Session 4: I drew some very simple continent shapes on the board, and had the students paint in green the “land” on their globe. When complete, they filled in the rest with blue. My kids were so young I didn't bring up the issue of the north and south poles being white, but older students would probably like to do so. When the paint was dry, I sprayed the globes heavily with a spray varnish to add a little shine. All in all, a lot of fun and parents liked them as much as the kids.
Need a recipe for paper mache? Click here for the link to mine.

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“Crafts for Kids” Giveaway

This craft magazine comes from Family Fun, and it’s full of down-home, do-it-yourself projects that are designed to keep kids creative and entertained at the same time. It’s 96 pages have quite a few ideas that even I haven’t seen before, and believe me, I’ve seen a few. To enter my giveaway, leave a comment and contact info by Sunday night 12pm midnight, PDT. Good luck everyone!

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Tropical Earth Day Mural

Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22nd. I am happy to offer my new Tropical Earth Day Mural which includes two sizes: 12 pages (43"x 20") and 24 pages (64" x 30"). Click here to view the blank templates of each. 

You can purchase my pdf file with instructions for just $5. Click the “Add to Cart” button below to make your payment and receive immediate download instructions.

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Homemade Watercolor Easter Card

Here’s an idea for a pretty Easter Card. Grid formats are fun to play with so feel free to make your own variation of this drawing.

1. I started by folding a piece of 8.5" x 11" watercolor paper in half. To make a quick grid without a lot of measuring, give each student a 1" square of thin cardboard. They are to place the square in each corner, and trace around it as shown in the first diagram.
2. With a ruler, the students then connect the lines to complete the border as shown.
3. Spring and easter details may be added.
4. After the drawing is complete with a pencil, the lines are traced with a black ballpoint pen and the shapes are painted with watercolor. I used Prismacolor watercolor pencils to make my sample.

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Paper Mache Eggs, for Easter or Spring

I love springtime crafts that more or less imitate nature. I experimented with covering plastic fillable easter eggs with paper mache, and came up with this simple decoration.

1. I used the recipe that I posted about here, and covered a few plastic eggs with small bits of newspaper and mache. Several layers are best so that no plastic is peeking through. Let dry completely. Note: This worked well even with kinders as their small hands could really squeeze the eggs to smooth the paper.
2. Brush the eggs with one main light acrylic color and let it dry. Then use a small amount of darker paint for texture. Brush it on so that the eggs look to have 50/50 covering and let dry.
3. Rub on some gold tempera paint by hand to give the eggs a little shine.
4. Use a natural looking, bumpy yarn and unroll it into a small round pile for the nest. The result is a really nice centerpiece for any table.

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How to Draw a Truck

Every time I do a geometric drawing lesson like this, I am reminded that some students who yawn at the idea of drawing organic shapes, will work for hours on rectangular trucks or houses. It could be the sign of a future designer, which requires a more methodical set of drawing skills.

1. Working with letter size paper, I gave my kinders a Dixie cup to trace two wheels in the lower center of the paper. They drew the middle section of truck around them as shown in the diagram. 

2. The front and back of the truck are added.

3. The cab and window of the truck are drawn. A wavy or straight line is added for the road.

4. A profile of a driver is drawn, along with the back cab support.

5. Details or the truck and background complete the drawing. Students used a thin black marker to trace their drawing, and crayons to color it in.
Note: This lesson comes from Usborne’s “What Shall I Draw?” book, which has a lot of great drawing ideas.

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Rainbow Painting

This project offers students a chance to practice either wet-on-wet or dry brush watercolor painting. I used both for my sample.
1. I had the students paint without the aid of a pencil outline. They began by painting the grass across the bottom of the sheet.
2. Students who preferred the wet-on-wet rainbow painted the red arc, then orange, yellow, green, blue and purple all just barely overlapping to let colors bleed a bit.

3. Students who opted for the dry brush rainbow painted every other arc, starting with red, a space, then yellow, a space, then blue. When dry, they filled in the spaces with orange and green and added the purple. This spacing allows the colors to dry a bit to avoid bleeding.

4. They finished the sky with a very watery blue.

Note: My favorite paint of the moment are Dick Blick Liquid Watercolors. The colors just are too vibrant for me to pass up.

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Lettering 101

This is one of the lettering styles that is included in Cyndi Hansen’s “Letter Better” book, and I tried it just last week in a class. It has just three simple steps that even kinders can easily remember.

1. Stick letters are written in pencil.

2. The lines are traced with a black marker, and all end points are “capped” with black circles.

3. The letters are outlined, preferable with thinner marker, and filled in with colored pencils. Who needs a computer when you can make your own hip and colorful font?

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April Fool’s Eye Glasses

These glasses are pretty much guaranteed to create lots of giggles. Just be sure that children don't try to do much more than pose in them.
1. Follow this link (eyeglass template) to download a template I've posted for the glass frames. Print out copies on the heaviest paper stock available. Give each student a set and have them cut out all 3 pieces, including the inside of the frames. Tape sides to the front. The students decorate the frame with colored pencils or markers.
2. I found some stock photo images of eyes, and made lots of color copies for the students to pick from. Another option is to have realistic drawings of different eye shapes, and let the students choose and color their favorite. Or they could draw their own. Either way, the eyes and skin need to be colored, and then cut out and glued behind the eyeglass openings.

UPDATE: Thanks to my discovery of Scribd.com, I have posted a pdf of the eye photos I used HERE. If you don’t have a color printer, laser prints that are hand colored might work well too.

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How to Draw a Bunny

This breakdown of a bunny drawing is based on Sachiko Umoto’s illustrations in her book “Let’s Draw Cute Animals”. I just added a grid background, which works wonders for setting up the correct scale. About a dozen kinder and 1st graders drew this today, and the bunnies were all adorable!

1. A letter size paper is folded in half vertically, then in half horizontally two times to look like the pink dashed lines. The squarish round face is drawn in the middle as shown, and the eyes, nose and mouth are added.

2. Two ears are added, extending almost to the corners.

3. Curved shoulder lines come down from the head and continue to the feet. Note where the curve for the back legs is placed.

4. Two front legs are added, slightly to the left as shown so that the tail may peek out of the right side. When complete, the drawing is traced with a black marker and colored as desired ... even rainbow colors, if they are your favorite.

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Pastel Spring Eggs

One arts standard for elementary students is to learn to tint colors. My kids seemed to really enjoyed seeing how many colors they could make by just mixing yellow, red, orange and white together.

SESSION ONE: I made an egg template which is downloadable HERE and gave one to each student along with white, yellow, red and orange tempera paint on a plate, a brush and a cup of water. They were instructed to see how many different colors they could make – all were to have some amounts of white in them. The eggs and background were painted.

SESSION TWO: Students were allowed to draw designs on their eggs with oil pastels, but they were to keep the same color palate as before. In other words, they were limited to the paint colors as before – red, yellow and orange. This repetition of colors makes the painting more harmonious to the eye when complete.

CA Visual Arts Standard: 2.2 Mix and apply tempera paints to create tints, shades, and neutral colors.

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Baby Plant Craft

A parent recently donated a LOT of baby food jars, so I’ve been playing around with some different ideas. This comes purely from supplies that were on hand: peat moss, grass seed, and white paint marker. I wrote a simple message so the roots could still be seen, but a row of clear grassy jars would be pretty too. Could be a nice welcome to spring.

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Pierre Maxo’s “Jungle” Mural

I created this mural to celebrate the amazing artwork of a young Haitian artist named Pierre Maxo, and to raise funds for a special cause that I will take part in this summer. I’ll be traveling to Haiti with a group of  women from Project HOPE Art to donate art supplies and conduct art classes at orphanages overwhelmed by last year’s devastating earthquake.

This fundraising mural contains 9, 16 and 36 page versions (preview here) of Mr. Maxo’s “Jungle” painting. Instructions and color guide are included. To purchase this fundraiser at the special price of $10, click the “Add to Cart” button to make your payment via Paypal. Download instructions will follow upon completion of payment. All proceeds from the sale of this mural will benefit  Project HOPE Art.

Funds raised to date: $560. Thank you for supporting this special effort! 

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Student Art from Kansas City, MO

Melissa from Student Age Child Care (a school program provided by the local school district) emailed me her butterfly with a note that said, “We have about 60 students who all range from K-5 so its pretty hard to think up projects that are not to difficult for our kindergarten kids yet not boring for the older ones. . . I know the mural online is beautifully done so I was scared how it would come out since our different age groups have different levels of artistic ability. I think a lot of kids these days get caught up in the idea that everything has to be the right color, i.e: grass green, sky blue. I used our butterfly as an example of how something not perfect can be amazingly beautiful and unique.” I totally agree, Melissa!

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Shrinky Dink Jewelry

Recently the subject of jewelry making came up in one of my afterschool classes but my mind couldn’t seem to get past knotted string and expensive beads bouncing all over the floor. A search on the internet turned up Shrinky Dink paper, a media I remember enjoying as a child. 

1. I used a metal flower paper punch to make a handful of cutouts from white Shrinky Dink paper.
2. Using ultra fine permanent markers, I drew flower faces on both sides of each cutout. I used a small hole punch to make the eyelet.
3. I placed the  flowers on a piece of cardboard in a 325 degree oven. The flowers curl up, shrink, and then flatten out, all in the span of about 3 minutes. I love how they become thicker, too.

4. JoAnn Fabrics had the jump hooks and metal chain to complete my necklace. I was happy to find that the jump hooks were easy to twist open by hand, so I can imagine even young students being able to do this to finish their own jewelry.

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Shrinky Dink Jewelry, Kandinsky Style

Here’s another approach to take with my Shrinky Dink project using the popular Kandinsky circles-in-a-square. The original colored square on the right measures 2", and the finished piece measures 3/8". Hmm, if one looks good then 20 or more would be amazing...

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Jasper Johns 3D Painting

Jasper Johns is an American artist whose richly covered number paintings like this, rose to prominence in the 1950s. I created this project so students could make a miniature version, and recycle an old CD case as well.

1. Six 1 1/2" foam numbers or letters are arranged on an old CD case, the 1/4" thick variety. The students glue them down with white glue and let dry.

2. Gesso is needed to make the background opaque, so the entire CD front and sides are painted and let dry.

3. A second coat of gesso is painted and let dry.

4. Students use a pencil to draw the checkerboard lines between the numbers. They may choose two colors of acrylic and paint the board in a checkerboard style. The paint is let to dry.

5. Using a flat brush, students use one color of acrylic to “dry brush” a few vertical strokes in random spots.

6. Finally, students paint one last color in the same manner. Note: Restraint is needed here, the goal is to have a layered look with all of the colors still showing at the end.

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How to Draw a Bushbaby

What’s a Bushbaby you may ask? I’m not really sure, I just know they're really cute, which is all I need to keep the attention of my after school drawing students. This is borrowed from Drawbooks.com, which I plan to visit a lot more in the future.

1. Given my class is mostly made of kinders, I decided to give them an oval (body) and circle (head) cardboard template to start their drawing. Using an letter-size paper, they began by tracing the 6" x 5" oval near the left, and 3" circle overlapping as shown.

2. The line inside the head was erased, and ears were added near the top.

3. Large eyes were added in the bottom half of the face. The placement here is important; if they are too high, some cuteness factor is lost.

4. The body is finished with a tail, legs and toes.

5. The tree branch, leaves and moon are added. All lines are traced with a medium width marker, and the shapes are colored in with crayon.

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