Cats on a Quilt

Cat on a Quilt 

Calico cat on a crazy quilt.

Colorful quilt and a cat.

Colorful cat on a calico quilt.

What do you think about that?

This mixed media collage gave our Paint Your ART Out kids multiple opportunities to build skills and try new media and techniques. 

Best of all -- it was FUN! 

First they drew their cats with white chalk on black construction paper. They chose a favorite feline position and used their own drawing style. I encouraged them to fill up the paper with the cat, unless, of course, they were going for a tiny kitten. 

They then used oil pastels to fill in their cats with patterns using a planned color scheme, and cut them out.

Next, they made a quilt!

They cut 12 squares of quilt patterns from selected wallpaper sample books (remember those?) and arranged them on a big sheet of heavy white paper. A few cut some of the squares into triangles or smaller squares and fit them together like a puzzle to create an even 'crazier' quilt. It all fit together in the end. Then they glued our little Cat Quilt poem over a square somewhere in the quilt.


After they glued everything down, it was time to "sew" their quilts together. Using Sharpies, they added rows and rows of hand stitching along the edges of the quilt squares, just like on a real quilt. They added running stitches, overlapping stitches, crisscrossing, zigzags, and a few made up stitches, just like in the antique calico quilts seen in museums. 



Finally it was time to place the cat on the quilt. We used rolled masking tape for that, so they could move the cats around whenever they wanted too. My cat (at the top of this post) had a little surprise mouse friend, so I'm guessing the kids all went home and made their cats a mouse friend too.