Showing posts with label Painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Painting. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Tape Resist Letter Canvases

I totally dropped the ball on Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts this year, since we were spending all of our time outside this spring, so I've been wanting to do an art project that was more a keepsake than our normal process masterpieces.


I think we nailed it! While this is still basically our normal process piece, on canvas, with the first letter of their name resist, makes it a frameable and displayable art work.

I bought the 11 inch x 14 inch canvases at Walmart for $4.97 for a 3 pack. They also had 8 x 10, 12 x 12 and 12 x 16 sizes.


I've been wanting to try the new Frogtape, which is coated with a gel that supposedly won't let the paint seep underneath like the blue painter's tape often will. It caught my curiosity. Since my dad had a commercial painting company I worked at when I was right out of highschool, I knew the limitations of the blue tape and was not a fan.

Most of our activities are process-oriented, and I really didn't hold out much hope that this one would turn out well. However, the Frogtape did an excellent job, even with the children running trucks over it and mushing paint all over.


I used a 2 inch top and bottom margin and 1 1/2 inch side margins to space out the letters and used a craft knife to cut the tape cleanly with a metal straight edge. 



Since I didn't want these to be a mass of gray and brown, we did color mixing in batches. They first painted red, then blue, mixing into purple. I cleaned all the tools, and even took a blowdrier to the paintings to "set" the colors.


Then we moved on to yellow/blue/green after which I cleaned the tools and dried them once again. Then on to red/yellow/orange.



Even the littlest ones participated, but their attention spans only made it through the first set of colors. We will be going back to add the rest of the colors and finish theirs through the week.



The children were asked to choose a different texture tool for each color, but of course kept coming back to their favorites. They did well at sharing between them.


 They were encouraged to work in the white spaces and to cover the canvas, only not all at once with the same color.

The next day, we came back and the children removed the tape. It was a wonderful surprise for them, as we had not done this before. The first question, of course, was if they got to paint inside the letter now. That would be a "no!"




To ensure the white stays white, I sprayed each canvas with clear lacquer 


and added a sawtooth hanger, centered and about an inch down, to the back with super glue.





This was a great activity with a great result.

Tags: painting, art, canvas, preschool, pre-k, daycare, child, care, homeschool, tape, resist, letter, alphabet, process, product, name, mother's day, father's day, grandparent's day, christmas, present 

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Kandinsky Balloon Painting


Kandinksy is a wonderful artist to introduce to the preschool set. His use of bright colors, wonderful color combinations and shapes is both visually and perceptually delightful.


On our art room wall, we have


Color Study of Squares - Kandinsky    

 

and  Rhythm Joie de Vivre - Delaunay.

We discussed Kandinsky as a person and artist and compared his work to that of Delaunay. This art lesson went over well with the almost 5 year old. The 3s just saw balloons and were impatient to get started.


They first chose their paper. White, color, big, little...


Next we did color mixing. I laid out the plastic lids we used as paint pallets, and added the red, yellow and blue to each one. Then the children placed the appropriate color of balloon on the primary pallets.  We discussed the other balloons and why there were two colors on those. I gave each a balloon and they used the balloon to mix the paint to form that color. 




We do paint mixing frequently, so they were pretty on it as to what primary color combinations made which secondary color. 


Once the colors were all mixed, they were lined up for painting. We reviewed them in English, for the 1-2s, who were doing brush painting at the time, and in Spanish.




The almost 5 year old, got the idea, and did a wonderful job of painting a representation of Kandinsky, though she knew she didn't HAVE to do so.



The 3s and 4 year old LOVED the process and did some interesting work by dragging the balloons, pouncing them around, and smooshing them.



I was surprised at how well this art activity went over. I would definitely give it a 5 star rating for preschoolers. 


One of our favorite books on color mixing, that I highly recommend:




Our favorite video for color mixing is OK Go's Sesame Street video:


Thumbnail


This craft would also be good for children with sensory issues that do not like to get paint on themselves. The knot makes it easy for the children to hold it at the top and still be able to utilize it as a painting tool, but even if they have two hands on and are smooshing it down, they get very little paint on themselves unless they are trying to do so or are over zealous.

The task of getting the balloon to do what they wanted was an interesting study. It wasn't as easy as they thought it would be and took some experimentation and manipulation. I had purposefully tried to make the balloons not be EXACTLY the same size so that they would have the sensory experience of manipulating each one in a slightly different manner.


SKILLS:


  • Creative expression
  • Sensory
  • Fine motor
  • Gross motor
  • Unusual media
  • Color matching
  • Color identification
  • Color mixing
  • Art lesson
  • Color words, Spanish
  • Logic/Reasoning


Tags: preschool, pre-k, art, lesson, Kandinsky, Delaunay, balloon, painting, color, colors, balloon painting, child, care, daycare, history, fine motor, sensory, play, circle, 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Arm Print Apple Trees

"The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day." - Cat in the Hat by Dr. Suess



SO...we had time to do this classic! 


  • Have child sign and date their paper (easier to do first)
  • Mix brown paint (if you don't have it, I don't):                                                                                 1/3 yellow to 2/3 red to dab of blue
  • Palate green paint and red paint
  • Have child paint their forearm brown and hand green

  • Stamp onto appropriate sized paper
  • Have child paint their other hand green and stamp in the white parts to fill in
  • Have child do finger print stamps of red and/or yellow for apples
 

SKILLS
Art: creative expression, painting
Social: following directions

Science: apples grow on trees
Math: counting apples on the tree, measuring arm length

Check out the other apple theme posts...Apples Theme - Fun Stuff with songs, fingerplays, etc. and Apples Theme with FREEBIES: a pre-writing worksheet and apple anatomy poster to print.
tags: arm, apple, painting, craft, art, stamp, stamping, child, tree, finger, daycare, child, care, childcare, preschool, kindergarten, kid, kids