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One of my New Years resolutions this year was to get back on track with making art with the Woog. It is freezing here and it snowed so we probably won't venture out for a few days. Yesterday morning we did a quick project and made ice ornaments. She used a collection of colored beads, paper and glitter while I mixed together some previous work illustrations.
The Squirrel and I set out to make a stencil.I grabbed a file folder because of its thickness.She drew a cat on it and I cut it out.
The file folder worked out great for a stencilbecause of the way you can set the paper inside it-- the bottom edge helps with aligning and keeping it in one place.
And when we decided to do a second color(the cat's stripes), I could easily trace the shape onto the back of the folder when closed,then open it up and cut out the stripes...
...and if she aligned with the folder's bottom edge when painting the second color, it turned out pretty good.
I love it when an activity devised for Rylan (1) ends up being a crowd pleaser for the big kids too. Kenzie kept asking me to paint on this day, so I finally obliged her with this craft activity I'd "earmarked" as a Rylan-pleaser.
cool, thanks! love the muffin tin use!! I also found out how to make homemade fingerpaint for anyone interested: http://erinsherman.blogspot.com/2009/08/homemade-fingerpaint.html
Homemade body paint: 2 tsp Cornstarch 1 tsp cold cream 1 tsp. water 3-4 drops food coloring. Mix together in an egg carton or muffin tin, apply with paintbrushes. We used the garden hose for clean-up!!
Holidays are over but it's still winter :) We made these fun snowflakes with Q-tips. We cut a piece of white paper plate: hexagon or circle. We glued six Q-tips onto it, (low-temp hot-glue is easiest if you can). A button pressed into the center even helps finish it. TheSquirrel thought it was so cool she could use the Q-tips for something.
Her bedroom has a tree with removeable apples (via Velcro)... so we put Velcro on the backs of these snowflakes, to decorate her "tree" with them in the Winter. (For the Fall, we have autumn leaves to stick on there, and this Spring we'll stick blossoms on there.)
By: ErinSherman & TheSquirrel, age almost-5 WhiteShoes
0 Comments on Snowflakes with Qtips as of 1/1/1900
Becca helped us test art projects to use for the Art Adventure program in Riley's class while she visited this weekend. BoBo thinks the houses are so cool he has made a mini-neighborhood already. We'll have to take another photo later so you can see all the new ones. (=
(Riley did finally take a break from houses after Kindergarten this afternoon so we could make about 400 bookmarks for his school library. We had a fun time!)
These pictures are of something new we tried with the girl while camping last weekend. I try to plan entertaining activities for camping trips, so as to avoid those whiney "I'm boooooooooooooored" statements. Fortunately, this was a great trip and the lizards kept her well entertained. :) But, I knew she'd love this so I broke out the paints anyway.
I felt bad about "messing with nature" for about 2.5 seconds. She had such a great time with it, even narrating her art for the video camera at the conclusion.. that it was worth the guilt.
And, heck, it was washable paint. It'll come off in a good rain storm.
I've found a new way to buy some moments of peace & Kenzie enjoys it too. I write "secret messages" on a paper, Kenzie matches each letter with another letter found within a magazine and pastes them all down. When she's completed the collage, we decipher the message. Sometimes, she also adds pictures that go along with the message after we decipher it.
She knows all her letters and appropriate sounds now. And, this also is aiding in beginning reading skills.
The days of summer are rolling by in a blur and creativity is stifled in between baby cries and "must do's." However, I was instantly enamored with the new project by some of my favorite girls and wanted to join in..
Kenzie gave me the inspiration this morning...
We did just as Kenzie suggested - using the flowers and bits of nature to paint & collage the art. Thank you Kenzie & the Echoes creators. This Mama needed that.
Riley loves to do mail and play post office. Today he had the fun idea to make mailboxes for everyone in our house and hang them by their doors. So we took some old Kleenex boxes, covered them with foam, added red flags with brads and decorated them up. We have all had a great time sending mail to each other - and to make it even better we are writing them out like real envelopes using our full names (not addresses yet) so Riley is getting a lot of practice writing his last name. I drew over the last names in the photos so they are a bit odd looking, but you'll get the idea. Cabot had fun too - mostly dumping out foam stickers all over the living room. (=
By: Shena, Riley (5 years) and Cabot (20 months) Mommy and Riley
I made an outdoor background for each kiddo to paint as they wished. Riley decided to paint a Roller Coaster - he loves roller coasters! Cabot created an impressionistic painting that could be interpreted in many different ways: maybe it's birds? or kites flying? What it IS is his first painting! FUN! (=
By: Shena, Riley (5 years) and Cabot (20 months) Mommy and Riley
0 Comments on Riley and Cabot Paintings as of 1/1/1900
I asked TheSquirrel what should we draw and she quickly shouted "a great blue heron!" because we saw them canoing and they're always flying over our house. I was very impressed by her drawing, as she looked at a photo of a great blue heron. They have kinda wiggly long necks--hence the strange shape. Then I helped her notice each other feature.
I flipped it over to the other side and drew some lines for her to cut it up. (great cutting practice!)
And we have a puzzle out of her drawing! (It's pretty rough, would work better with higher contrast and thicker paper or more embellishing but this is all we had time for... go nuts with the idea itself!)
A great video from YouTube highlighting hand lettering by a father and son.
In other news, one of my goals this year is to redesign this site, get more participants and try and post regularly with work from my daughter and myself, plus try and highlight some other big and little art from the web. Maybe all this will happen this summer. Maybe I won't be as swamped with work then :)
I want to thank all of you who have kept this site fresh with posts!
We borrowed a library book involving shapes that become sea creatures in a cut-paper style...
and since today we integrated the letter D to our learning, we looked at the "semicircle" page...
and made our own jellyfish out of cut paper. This is TheSquirrel's, which was great for scissor practice. (The jellyfish I mean; I had to cut the fish for her)
And here is mine:
By: ErinSherman & TheSquirrel, age just4! WhiteShoes
I was actually excited that it rained today. That's because we could try this project: Drip just a little liquid food coloring (or we had liquid watercolors) on a paper plate, then hold it out or place it in the rain to watch what interesting thing the rain does to it. (I guess the paint splatters a little as the raindrops fall into it). It's a very fun activity and one that allows us to interact with nature. If the green crusaders from renewable energy-focused Acre Resources see this, I'm very sure they'll give it a thumbs-up."
Then we took the textures it made to the computer and I asked the Squirrel, what does this look like? So she gave me ideas and we made these doodles:
And I made the space one above, and this flower one:
There's an old saying that the month of March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.
Following a children's calendar craft, above is TheSquirrel's lion and lamb on paper plates. Below are my lion and lamb, the way I work with patterns/texture on the pieces.
By: Erin Sherman & TheSquirrel, age just turned 4! WhiteShoes
From the library we borrowed a picture book titled "The Pocket Book," in which the character has ten pockets sewn on the front of her dress. I decided to do a dress-shaped project with TheSquirrel, (gluing on) ten pockets of different textures (scraps of fabrics or materials).
Then we wrote the descriptions of them, kinda like in the book. We wrote:"A scaly one, a roughy one, a dotty one, a plaidy one, a spotty one, a stripy one, a furry one, a purpley one, a silky one, and one to match my big blue eyes!"
What child doesn't like putting things into pockets? And, Hooray for glue guns!
By: Erin Sherman & TheSquirrel, almost 4! WhiteShoes
0 Comments on Pockets as of 1/1/1900
Crystal said, on 3/1/2008 2:02:00 PM
This is so cute! I think you should do it to a wearable item of clothing now!
Home Made Side Walk Paint. We've been doing a lot of temporary art, so by the time I run and get the camera, things are already dissolved, smooshed into an ambiguous blob, or (gasp!) still totally unfinished. These paints may work best in warmer weather but we did it anyway. The recipe for this is found in FEB 2008 Family Fun magazine:
cool, thanks! love the muffin tin use!!
I also found out how to make homemade fingerpaint for anyone interested:
http://erinsherman.blogspot.com/2009/08/homemade-fingerpaint.html