SPOOKY STUFF!

MORE spooky goings-ons at the Blackfoot ART Center!

We made scary JACK O' LANTERNS. Just check out all of those teeth in this one!

The Jack below is painted on old weathered wood (so we know it's haunted).

















This Jack LOOKS happy... but is he really?

This MUMMY came straight out of our MakerSpace, but he wasn't happy until he had comfortable living arrangements. His maker then constructed him a bed, a table, a lamp, chairs, and a flat screen TV!





Halloween means OWLS at the Blackfoot ART Center, so following tradition, we created  these owls in oil pastel.






Okay, maybe not so scary but pretty adorable, huh?

NOTE: One student said owls are not so adorable once you examine their pellets. She's done it...twice!


 Of course, Halloween also means PARTY! 

Our Home School Art Club members are strict Halloween partyers, and this year was no exception. 

As always, they planned and carried out their own party, which meant, of course, plenty of treats, just like this little owl, right? 




NO, we did not eat BUGS, but we had plenty of this, which is always my food assignment. (Watch out, marshmallow caramel corn can be addicting!)







This little witch was amazing on the white board!





Halia brought her face paints.


We listened to Halloween music and ate too much and drank slime punch and played games including The Ghost and the Witch, the Trick or Treat game, the Spider Web game, Bottle Ball Tic-Tac-Toe, and Halloween Memory. 

Everyone got treats and prizes! 

 "There's something strange in the neighborhood..."

More Spooky Halloween Art!

Our home school art club came in with a great idea: 

Cosmic Halloween watercolor painting!

I did some online research and found the kids' go-to place for cosmic art, Humby Art,  where you can find examples of watercolor painted nebula, galaxies, planets, comets, and stars -- in other words, cosmic art. We decided to combine this type of watercolor painting with a Halloween theme by adding silhouettes of spooky images on top of the completed cosmic art, and here are some of our results. Pretty cool, huh? 

You can learn more about cosmic watercolors on the Humby Art Facebook page.

Spooky Art Sightings!

Spooky Arty & Crafty Things have  recently been spotted at the Art Center!

Fortunately, we have been able to get a few pictures of them before they disappeared into the night.

We've had families of black cats and owls popping up out of nowhere. Or maybe out of our giant MakerSpace box of cardboard tubes. Just maybe.

We've also tracked down some spooky witch's hats, adorned with some very strange (or silly?) symbols, shapes, and patterns!

We've also come across a very spooky pumpkin patch 

in the dead of night!

                        Are those BATS flying in the moonlight??!!

It's very possible that we haven't seen the end of these 

strange sightings! Check back again soon!

Learning to Paint Water

Stream in Early Autumn 11" x 14"

These young men came to the Art Center to learn how to paint a landscape that includes water, so I created this little painting for them that includes both rushing and tranquil water. 

Some of these boys claim to have not painted since kindergarten!!! (I find that hard to believe.) In any case, shown below are the results of their awesome artistic efforts. 


(One of these was painted by an adult youth leader. Can you find it? Scroll down to see if you are right.)

What Color is the Wind?

I just love this beautiful autumn art project! 

I like the idea of visualizing the wind, which we can hear and we can feel and sometimes we can smell. So we ask ourselves, what would the wind look like?

Also, I love process art. This project lets the children experiment (play) with fun art processes, different media, and beautiful autumn colors!



To create this artwork, we first paint a big piece of mixed-media white paper with swirls of color! We use cake temperas, because they are similar to watercolor, but BIG! We use large easel brushes for this, and we fill up the entire paper.

Then, on another piece of white paper, we scrape black liquid tempera paint with an old credit card to create marks like those on a birch or aspen tree. Sometimes we paint long lines first to scrape between, but that's optional. 

After the paint is dry, we cut long strips of this paper to create our trees, and shorter strips for branches.  



We arrange and glue the trees to the background, then we add the branches. 





We cut and crinkle a few bits of colored tissue paper to create falling leaves. 

These are glued to the artwork for a 3-D effect and viola!





This gorgeous autumn scene!