Bottle Top Grid Art!

Our ART Adventurers made these awesome recycled art projects using ordinary bottle caps!

We only had two hours, so our 3 x 3 grids contained nine squares. Adding just one row each way would mean 16 squares, so nine squares was just right.



We started by dividing a 9" x 12" piece of watercolor paper into twelve 3" x 3" squares and painting each section with acrylic craft paint. We mixed each color, creating our own tints, tones, and shades. 

After the paint was dry, I cut the best portion of each 3" x 3" painted square into a 2" x 2" painted tile. The artists then drew a quick square around each tile with oil pastels using one or two analogous or complementary colors. 





The artist then selected her favorite 9 tiles and carefully arranged and glued them to a piece of 6" x 6" corrugated cardboard.






Now it was time for the artist to select nine bottle caps and glue each to the center of a tile with white glue. Some bottle caps were glue on upside down, some right side up. Some were also painted prior to gluing. We found it easiest to smear the glue onto a plastic lid to dip the lids an other items into. 






Now the fun part!

Our artists thoughtfully selected marbles, trinkets, jewels, beads, shells, tiles, and other treasures to glue to their bottle caps for tiny surprises hidden throughout the artwork. 

Wacky Robotic Hands

On the last day of this week's Wacky Art Camp, we made these amazing Robotic Hands! 

This was such a great S.T.E.A.M. MakerSpace project! The kids were so excited about using ordinary materials to make something really AWESOME!




Materials:
Corrugated cardboard, tempera paint, small zip ties, straws, string, small fun foam shapes, and hot glue.

Tools:
Pencil, paint brush, shears, craft knife, old credit card, hot glue gun.


You can find the step-by-step instructions for making this robotic hand on Youtube right here.

This one needed a cardboard brace attached to it after it was painted, which could easily be transformed into a robotic battery pack by its creator and a few colorful Sharpies.

Wacky Robots!

These Wacky Robots were a dream come true! What kid wouldn't want to build his/her own robot -- from scratch??? In one afternoon?

Recycled sculptures are actually referred to as assemblages because they are assembled from anything and everything. We have bins and bins full of recyclables, craft supplies, and odds and ends that proved to be perfect for this project! This project is what our S.T.E.A.M. MakerSpace is all about!



Here's a partial list:


Craft sticks, plastic lids/bottles, cans, wood scraps, brads, wire, yarn, broken/discarded toys, pipe cleaners, metal hardware, duct tape, beads, dowels, yarn, straws, felt scraps, cardboard, etc.  

We also needed tools like wire cutters, scissors, hammers, pliers, paper glue, HOT glue, and LOTS of hot glue sticks. 






There were no real rules about what they could make or how.  Originally, it was to be a "robotic creature of some kind," but we ended up with whatever the kids came up with from the materials at hand. 

Giant army robot

Spoon woman w/movable legs

Creature assemblage

Pet walker on a bridge

Netting the dinosaur riders

Elephant mama and baby on a leash

Note: The tin can robot at the top of this post was described by its creator as the "best robot ever!" (He really likes it.)

Wacky Tiles

We also made these wacky "crammed tiles" during Wacky ART Camp week! 

Each artist selected all sorts of unusual objects from our bins of "stuff" and glued as many of them as they could to a six inch piece of sanded board. Then they painted them so as to obscure the original 'identity' of each object while creating an unusual piece of art. 

They started by sanding all of the edges of their wooden tiles to eliminate any chances of splinters. Items were then arranged on the tiles first, some very carefully and in a very organized fashion, and others just globbed on randomly to fill up the spaces (which is sort of what I was going for). We used white all-purpose glue which would dry overnight.  


The next day we painted the entire tile and all of its objects with white gesso (like white primer, which would also work). This took away any feelings of dread about painting an object the 'wrong' colors and created a nice clean white 'canvas' of relief sculptured tile. 

After the gesso dried, the kids painted their tiles using just one or two colors of acrylic craft paint (one chose three colors plus white).

This is a great way to recycle/re-purpose old keys, beads, broken toys and other random little "stuff."

Wacky Weaving!

Week 2 of Summer ART Camps was all about Wacky Whimsical ART! Every project was a bit wild and weird -- just what kids love!

Our first project was this crazy Circle Weaving. 

This project was done in two parts: FIRST, the cardboard loom was created. SECOND, the circle weaving was created.

We first drew an 'organic' loom shape (like an amoeba) on a piece of stiff corrugated cardboard and cut it out. A circle was also drawn somewhere inside the shape for the weaving to happen, but left uncut.



The loom was then decorated in one of two ways. The first was to "Zentangle" or doodle it with black Sharpies, then attach pieces of tissue paper over the doodles with thinned white glue.  The doodles showed through! 

Once the white glue was dry, the artist could go overt the doodles again here and there with a metallic marker to emphasize some of the shapes or add new ones, like this one:

Black Sharpie and tissue

Metallic Sharpie details added

(The metallic details were added here after the weaving was completed)

The second decorating method was to paint a design on the loom using thick tempera paint. After it dried, the artist then added oil pastel patterns over the paint. Some doodled then painted, which was a-okay too.

Artists were to choose a specific color scheme for their loom: warm colors, cool colors, analogous colors, etc. and could also use black and/or white to mix tints and shades.


When the loom was completely dry, the teachers cut out the center of the loom using a craft knife and punched holes around the edges -- always an ODD number of holes to make the weaving work. 

Then the warp was woven through the holes to create a starburst effect.




The remaining warp yarn was woven around the center of the starburst warp to create the weft. When it was only a couple inches long, it was tied to a new piece of yarn and the weaving continued, hiding the knots behind the weaving. 


It was fun looking for unusual pieces of fuzzy or stringy or fat or multi-colored yarns to add to the circle weaving. Some of these odd yarns gave the weaving a 3-D look, which was surprising and pleasing to look at and touch. 




It was not necessary to fill up the warp with weft. Each artist decided when his or her circle weaving was done.

My sample

We love Circle Weaving! Thank you to Small Hands Big Art for this great project!

A Hilly Landscape

These rolling hills feature a ribbon of highway that hugs the coast  to create an interesting perspective. This unusual view was a fun and fascinating project for all of our artists, ages 6-16!




To create this painting, we first talked about one- and two-point perspective.  The hills would act as an interesting element to create the illusion of perspective as the road disappears in the distance.

Using a few instructions, the artists drew their hills and added the horizon line.  



They drew the road, a distant mountain, an island or two, and other details such as boats, clouds, or birds flying overhead, then traced over all of their lines with a black Sharpie.


Now it was time to paint.

We used cake temperas for this project. We wanted our work to look more like a watercolor painting, so we thinned the colors a bit. Cake temperas are so versatile! 


I love how they all put their own 'spin' on this project to create these unique paintings.