One Apple - Four Ways

In how many ways can one portray a piece of fruit? Artistically, the choices are nearly endless. 

For this project, we chose a simple piece of fruit and described it using at least four different media and/or art techniques.

Choices included: 

watercolor 

tempera paint 

oil pastels

Prismacolor Stix

acrylic paint 

soft pastels / charcoal 

markers / Sharpies

colored / pastel pencils 

charcoal / graphite pencil 

collage 

crayon 

mixed media 

or
anything else

My demo / sample

This little artist changed things up a bit. She painted several different types of fruit, all in tempera paint. Artists have options.

Tree of Life

Every so often we learn about a master artist and create art in that artist's style. 


This week we learned about the Austrian symbolist artist Gustav Klimt and his intriguing 1909 painting, The Tree of Life. 

The Tree of Life, by Gustav Klimt

We observed not only the interesting, never-ending  swirly branches but also the odd little symbols, shapes, and critters hidden within the painting. 










To create our own Tree of Life, we first moistened our background paper with clear water and covered it with torn tissue paper - the kind that bleeds.  Then we dried the art using blow dryers until the tissue bits blew away and left all of these lovely colors and textures!






Next we painted our trees over our backgrounds with thick black tempera paint, using slightly thinner paint for the tinier swirley limbs. 

We added some sparkle in the form of glitter paint, either to the tree, the background, or both.

As an option, artists then added tiny objects, cutouts, stickers, and 'bling' (sequins) within the branches of their trees. 

You have to look carefully to see them, and some are very surprising!

Tree of Life, by McKenna, age 11 
acrylic and found objects on 11" x 14" canvas panel

Easter Egg Hunt!

The Easter Bunny hid these beautifully decorated Easter Eggs in the grass!

Can you find them?




This is a mixed media project for ages 4 and up.

First the artists traced a large egg template at least four times on a large sheet of sulphite paper. This ensured that the eggs will not be drawn too small.




Then each egg was decorated using a different medium or technique:

Zendoodle: markers and watercolor

Wax resist: crayons and watercolor

Tempera: liquid tempera paint

Choice: soft pastel, stickers, washi tape, any combination of media



Our Little Artists really enjoyed this project because it is so process-based. They learned new skills while exploring different media, all in one painting!



The next step was to hide the finished eggs in the grass! We used six different greens to create our grass, and some of the kids mixed even more greens!

Adding washi tape was really fun for our younger artists. This artist planned his washi tape designs very carefully.






For some, washi tape was sticky and stipy and really awesome and it didn't even matter if the tape fit the eggs at all!

Our older artists spent a bit more time on their Easter egg designs and patterns. They also incorporated overlapping of the eggs in the layout of their compositions. 





They repeated some of the techniques used in the original three egg designs while combining various media in new ways - such as rubbing soft pastel into an egg, then adding stickers or washi tape stripes, or using Sharpies and a bit of watercolor for their Zendoodle designs. 

Busy Little Artists

Our Little Artists have been super busy!!!

To celebrate the first day of spring, they made these Birds on a Limb.  








This process art project is a painted mixed media collage that includes natural elements. 







Adding the feathers was extra fun!

We also made these awesome cardboard collages!

Young children love working with shapes and textures, and they like to construct with GLUE. Here they could choose from brushing on white glue or giant glue sticks!

The next step was to paint the collage. We used liquid temperas, which I pre-mixed with a bit of white for added opacity. 

Finally, the blow dryers! This is probably these boys' favorite part of this (or any) art project!

These Crazy Critters were so much fun to make!!! 

These critters have moving parts and include paint, markers, yarn, and anything else our little artists wanted to add. 

Like pipe cleaners and recycled treasures, which we have a lot of. 

This critter is a toy-eating monster that is not named Jack. (This was made very clear to me.)