October 26, 2012

Goofy Mixed Media Halloween Pumpkins! {tutorial}

We did this kid art project in my son's 1st grade class last week! These 1st-graders did amazing on their pumpkins ripping, glueing, mixing paint with their fingers, cutting, and creating faces- all in a little over 1 hour! 

This is the best art project to do with kids to help continue & develop multiple skills.  See how easy it was to create really silly pumpkin faces.(I found this idea from pinterest and that artist woman.)




Materials Needed:

  • various papers that can rip in strips (we used newspaper, wall paper, tissue paper & white paper)
  • black, green, white & black paper
  • red & yellow paint
  • paper plates for mixing
  • scissors
  • glue


  • have the kids RIP their own various papers in strips, then vertically GLUE securely to white paper -strips can be right next to each other or have spacing



  • give each their own plate of RED and YELLOW  paint to mix with their fingers - Yes, I said finger mixing! 
  • with their fingers have them apply their orange paint to their entire paper


  • let the paint DRY and then on the back of the painted paper have them draw a PUMPKIN shape and CUT it out


  • pre-cut paper for the EYES, MOUTH, TEETH, PUPILS, NOSE, & STEM so they can design and cut out their faces quickly...
Ready to make a FACE!




teeth...grrrrrrrrrrr...


  • glue all the face parts on and glue the pumpkin to a black paper


These are hilarious & quirky! I laughed again when I saw them hanging up in the hallway together!















 I love the different colors of oranges that the kids created all by themselves. The eyes and mouth add the finishing touch of goofiness!


Don't you love these?


HAPPY PUMPKIN DAY NEXT WEEK!





A little Halloween at our house - bats-spiders-eyeballs

The month of October... has been busy! If you look at my blog, it looks as if nothing has been happening in my life altogether. But if there is not much posted here, that means waaaaaaaahey too much has been happening (not to mention, I have the slowest high speed internet)! 

My kids begged to decorate for Halloween, and here are just a few of their favorites and mine...


-BATS-
(white crayon on black paper - 7 years old)



-FEATHER WREATH with BATS-
(I loved the feather wreath in our craft store, but didn't want to pay $40-so I hot-glued a feather boa onto a black foam wreath.)




 -KIDDIE SPIDERS-
The main bodies are made from painted egg cartons, legs from pipe cleaners, and open-mouthed photos of my kids. Eeeek!




-EYEBALL WREATH-
I couldn't resist making this wreath that I found at Country Living. I tried not to make it too scary, I have little ones.)



-BoOYA! PUMPKINS-
I love this idea of white pumpkins with a message that has been floating around on pinterest.com, but of course I changed the message to my liking.




Have a...

H A P  P  Y   H A L O W E E N !


It's obvious, my kids enjoy painting on our windows whenever possible - which is okay with me!




October 02, 2012

Oh my CUPCAKES! (Summer Ceramic Class)

Yummy! 

This was one of the projects we made in my summer kid art class- strictly playing with clay! I found the idea of making cupcakes over at Fun Art 4 Kids, but of course changed the process in how we built them. Go here to see more our kid ceramic projects for this class.

(You can also make this project with air-drying clay Crayola Air-Dry Clay, White, 2 1/2 lbs (Google Affiliate Ad) or at your local craft store.)




Here's how we did it:

BOTTOM
  • rolled with rolling pin clay slab less than a 1/2" thick and pressed into oversized muffin tins (use plastic in between so you can get the clay out) for the bottom and cut off extra clay
  • used a carving knife to carve vertical stripes for that cupcake liner look



TOP

  • rolled with rolling pin another large slab of clay and starting building a top for the cupcake, using a different pinch pot technique
  • hand-rolled little balls for the cherry and some made sprinkles for the top! 
  • after firing one(bisque) time only, we painted the cupcakes with acrylics and sealed with a polyacrylic (I love polyacrylic!)


(6 - 10 years old)








These were so much fun to build (I even made one but it fell and broke :(

So much fun to paint...

So yummy to look at, 
and they will never spoil!




Eat your heart out cupcake lovers