Painting Frescos

After studying Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel in our homeschool group, we decided that a fresco painting art project was the perfect activity!

To do this project, you need tempera paint, plaster of paris, styrofoam trays (the plaster pops out very easily), paintbrushes, and creative kid artists!

I mixed the plaster of paris...2 parts plaster to one part water.  These trays held 2 cups of plaster mixed with 1 cup of water.  Because the plaster of paris was quick setting, I had to work fast so the first tray didn't set before I had them all made!  I set up the trays, paints, and brushes up on plastic tablecloths in order to make clean-up a little easier.  The kids painted on the plaster while it was still wet, but firm.

All of the kids seemed to really enjoy this activity!  It was simple and fun, and I love all of their creative frescos!

This is my girls' art displayed at home. Displaying the frescos in plate stands seems like the best way to do it,  but I haven't figured out where to put them so they won't get knocked over.  I'm sure they'll shatter if they fall.

I love O(6)'s fish and E(3)'s abstract masterpiece!

Clean Color Mixing

The girls and I had fun mixing red and yellow paint to make orange a couple of weeks ago! 


To do this activity, I squirted red paint in one side of a gallon zip lock bag and yellow in the opposite corner.  I sealed the bag and taped it to the table. 


The girls liked mashing and squishing the bag to mix the colors. 


O(6) eventually took the tape off the bag so she could roll it and squish it all around.


She wrote messages on the bag for me to read.


They both loved this activity, and I loved that it was so simple and there was no clean-up!  The idea for this activity came via Pinterest, various blogs, and children's craft books...it's an oldie, but goodie :)

Raining Rainbows

When I saw this fun and simple activity on Jo's blog, I knew it was one we had to try!

To make a raining rainbow fill a clear container with water and cover the top with shaving cream.  Drip food coloring onto the top of the shaving cream.  Then, watch and wait until  the rainbow begins to rain through the cloud of shaving cream. We were so excited when the colors started "raining" down from our cloud of shaving cream!  (I admit that I was more excited than the girls!)



The top of the shaving cream looked really pretty!



After we watched the raining rainbow for a while, we placed pieces of white card stock onto the colored shaving cream to make prints.  The girls loved this part the most of all, and they somehow ended up covered in shaving cream!  We scraped off the shaving cream to leave behind a swirly and colorful print, but I forgot to take a picture of the final product.



Simple, beautiful, messy, and fun!  Doesn't get much better than that!

Art with Anything...Painting with Liquid Watercolors on Salt and Sticky Contact Paper

I recently checked out Mary Ann Kohl's book, Art with Anything, from the library and now I have lots of ideas for art projects with the girls.  This is especially great since O(5) told me that she wants to do a different art activity each day!

Our first activity from Art with Anything was to paint on sticky contact paper with salt and liquid watercolor paints.

First, I taped 2 pieces of contact paper (sticky side up) to 2 cookies sheets.  Then, the girls had a great time shaking and pouring salt onto their contact paper.



After, they completely covered the contact paper with salt, they painted the salt covered paper with liquid watercolors.  I told them to use a gentle and light touch so that they wouldn't dislodge the salt.  However, the salt moved even when they used a light touch which was frustrating for O(5).








Eventually, she stopped trying to use a light touch and had fun filling her paintbrush up with salt!








We let the paintings dry overnight, and then hung them up on the sliding glass door this afternoon.  When I saw them, I reminded myself that it's the process that counts not the final product.  However, when we hung the painting on the door, E(2) rushed over while saying over and over "It's beautiful!  It's SO beautiful!"  Love her!

Painting Like Georgia O'Keeffe

The children at O(5)'s Montessori School study a different artist each month, and at the end of the month I go in and do an art project with them based on that artist. The artist of the month for November was Georgia O'Keeffe. O's teacher read several books about Georgia O'Keeffe with the children, and theyworked with the Georgia O'Keeffe art cards from Montessori Print Shop.

On our art day, we taped watercolor paper to the table for each child and provided them with a live flower in a tiny vase (each child chose his or her flower), a set of watercolor paints, and a cup of water. The kids got right to work!



Before the children started painting, I told them to study their flowers. They looked at the centers of the flowers, studied the texure, noticed the colors, and noticed that the shapes of the petals repeated. I told them to paint the flower BIG and to try to make the petals reach the edge of their papers. 





Here is a link to the lesson plan that I followed.

Both of our girls LOVE painting with watercolors, and I'm so excited the new liquid watercolor set they received for Christmas.  We may be painting like Georgia O'Keeffe at home, too!

Bubble Prints

The girls LOVED making bubble art prints as an art activity during "B" week. Thanks for everyone who emailed with suggestions on how to do this!

I poured about 2 tsp of Dawn into a bowl and added a little water. The girls each chose one color of food coloring and squeezed the color into their bowls. I gave each of them a straw with a slit cut in it...it's VERY important to cut a small slit in the straw, so that they don't accidentally suck up the soapy solution! They stirred the mixture with the straw and then blew to make a bowl full of bubbles.




Once the bubbles were over the rim of the bowl, we placed a piece of white cardstock on top of them to make a bubble print. O experimented with holding the paper on top of her bowl while blowing the bubbles, and this worked well.


Here is their finished artwork.



This one is embellished with a few stickers :)