Painting Peter Cottontail

While I do favor process over product, now and then I cave just a bit.  I realize that parents like to have something seasonal on the fridge from time to time.  And the littles really don't mind obliging.

I pre-cut paper into bunny shapes and the littles got to work painting them with cotton balls.  Most favored the cotton ball attached to a clothespin approach.  When the bunnies were dry, children were given an option of adding cotton ball tails and google eyes.

partner pictures

Some cooperative art.  Really big paper.  Brand new colored markers.  Two friends sharing ideas - drawing together.  Sometimes the simple things actually turn out to be the most successful.  I was a fly on the wall during this lesson - just standing back and observing.  And, I loved what I saw.  They were listening to what the other person had to say.  They were problem solving.  They were planning.  And, best of all - they really liked it.

Wood & Watercolors

Wooden eggs and bunnies from Casey's Wood + opaque watercolors = fun at the art table this week :)

p.s.  the littles couldn't wait to take these home!!!

rescued from under a pile of paperwork . . .

We made circle prints with large cardboard tubes earlier in the year and I discovered them under a pile of paperwork that I was saving.  They didn't look quite finished so I gave the children the option of adding some color with watercolor paint.  Some did a watercolor wash over the entire thing but most just filled in  the circles with different colors like this.

flower prints

. . . or - what to do when the bouquet from your still life is on it's way out.

and today we were mixed media artists . . .

This project required a time commitment of two days and a fair amount of Elmer's glue.  Besides the Elmer's you need:  heavy tagboard, wallpaper sample books, scraps of fabric, and tissue paper.  Because we were re-using and recycling things that were being thrown out this was a great project to touch on that subject.  I explained to the children that the fabric scraps were left-over from a project I did at home, the wallpaper books were being thrown away by a store in town, and I gathered the tissue paper from Christmas gifts.

On Day 1, I gave the children tagboard cut-outs of vases.  Normally, I'd let them cut-out their own vases or at the very least, trace them.  This time I was under a time crunch so I pre-cut the vases.  We mixed equal parts Elmer's glue and water and painted the vases with glue.  The children decorated the vases with fabric scraps and then applied a top coat of the glue/water mixture.

On Day 2, we made a background on a large sheet of tagboard.  Once again, we covered the paper with glue/water.  This time the children decorated it with torn tissue paper.  They put an additional coat of glue/water over the tissue before attaching their vases and some flowers cut from the wallpaper books.

I am in love with the way these turned out :)

drawing a still life

We smelled and touched the flowers and then arranged them in a pretty glass vase.  Once the vase was in the middle of the table, we asked the small group gathered there to really look at the flowers.  To notice the shapes and colors.  To think about the parts of the flower.  Which parts could they see?

We gave the children large sheets of heavy white paper and oil pastels and then stood back to see what they came up with.  When they finished, they were able to apply a wash of watercolor over the pastels.

I think it's so interesting to see how each child "looked" at the vase of flowers.  One little boy seemed to be attracted to the red vase which he drew in the middle of the page and then filled with red flowers (even though there were flowers in other colors as well).  Most children included the vase, but some only saw the flowers.