Little Artists, Part II

March 21, 2008

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I wanted to share a few more pictures of art projects from the past few weeks that my students have been creating. I mentioned the Van Gogh inspired finger paintings that we had done recently. The children loved manipulating the thick acrylic paint and I showed them how to “draw” with their fingers, by scraping away some of the layers of paint in different shapes and patterns. A couple of their pieces are on the right.

In some classes we created monoprints (like the one on the left), just by rubbing a second piece of paper over their original painting. The children were able to see their unique paintings recreated in a second form, which delighted many of them.

Recently we have been paying extra attention to texture and experimenting with combining varied materials. In our most recent project I handed out large squares of cardboard and then presented the children with a colorful pile of odds & ends…beautiful pieces of decorative paper, aluminum foil, string, plastic gel sheets, bubble wrap, glitter, and paint. The final ingredient was “mod podge” which is an acrylic medium that dries clear and can be used to glue & varnish projects. With giant brushes dipped in mod podge paste the children spent most of the class time collaging these different elements together. I was fascinated to see which materials different children were drawn to and whether or not they layered the materials or preferred to keep elements separate. I encouraged the children to explore the texture with their fingers as they placed the pieces on the cardboard. It was a very fun class – both for me and the kids…I love the process of gathering the materials, setting them out, and then watching the children engaging full heartedly in the art.


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