Keep Creating at home!
I'll post art project ideas here for our virtual learners and anyone looking for independent art enrichment at home. These are completely optional and ungraded.
Grades K-3:
Something we learn in art class is how to make mistakes into something beautiful. We grow from looking at our mistakes or accidents in our artwork and trying to make them into something that will work, that we can be happy with. Sometimes, we even discover something that we never would have known we could do. For this open-ended activity, please read the book "Beautiful Oops!" by Barney Saltzberg or watch this read-aloud video. Next, take a small piece of scrap paper--something torn or crumpled, something that has been discarded--and look at it. Turn it around. What does the shape make you think about? What do the colors or marks or texture of the scrap remind you of? Now turn it into something beautiful. You can do this be gluing it to a piece of copy paper and drawing around it to turn it into something from your imagination. Or you can fold it, build with it, or use your own ideas to create something from this discarded scrap.
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Frida Kahlo was a real, famous artist from Mexico. Watch/listen to this story that is based on her real life, but shows her as a cat. It's called Frida Catlo. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjxrkieyh0M
The real Frida Kahlo painted many self-portraits and included a lot of details that reflected her culture, including flowers, bright colors, nature, and animals. You can see that in this book, even though the author and illustrator show her as a cat instead of a person. They do this for fun. For your art project today, you get to draw an animal acting like a person. It can be a cat or any animal you want. And the animal might be acting like an artist, or maybe it's acting like YOU or someone you know. A dog as a firefighter? A rabbit as a soccer player? A sloth as a race car driver? Draw an animal acting like a person, and include a lot of detail, color, and creativity.
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Grades 4-8:
Weaving is something you can try at home using recycled materials. Yarn is inexpensive, but you can also use paper, ribbon, strips from old tshirts, etc. Videos below show how to make a cardboard loom, how to do basic weaving, and how to remove the weaving from the loom. If you would like a small cardboard loom and a small supply of yarn, please email me and I can leave it for you to pick up from the office.
Weaving video 1
Weaving video 2
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Watch and listen to this video from Tate Kids about using interesting angles in photography. The narrator of this video gives you a lot to think about. Whether we are taking photographs or drawing, using unexpected angles can bring interest to your art. If you have a phone or portable camera available, use some of the ideas in this video to take interesting pictures. If you dont have a camera, you can draw from observation by looking from the same kind of angles. Here are some ideas you can try:
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Maybe you're family is cleaning out drawers this season? You might find tiny treasures that could be mistaken for trash. Look at the work of Lillian Blades here. She is from the Bahamas and lives in Georgia. She is an artist who is working now creating amazing assemblage artwork. Assemblage is a work of art made by putting found objects together. If you are able to collect small treasures, bits of cardboard or cloth, buttons, beads, sequins, etc. Try arranging them on a cardboad background (you can use a pieces from a shipping box or a cereal box) and create your own assemblage. Think about how the colors of your tiny treasures look next to each other. Maybe you want similar colors to be close together, or maybe you want to create a design that reminds you of a feeling or a place. Use Elmers glue or a stronger glue to glue your pieces to the cardboard. Fill in cracks with other pieces or layers. Now you have an assemblage.
-If you'd like to send me a picture of your assemblage, I'd love to see it! I might post it on social media too.
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Try one-point perspective to make a sign for your room! Follow along with this video to draw your name in black letters, then make them look 3-dimensional. You will need a pencil, eraser, ruler, markers, and colored pencils.
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Here are some other links and projects you might enjoy at home...
Take a virtual tour of famous museums including MOMA, the Met, the Van Gogh Museum, the Guggenheim, and many others.
Coloring Pages Originals for the Bernies community include frame designs where you can draw your own masterpiece inside, a Thank You design you might send to someone, and spring designs. Make and spread cheer and gratitude.
Origami phone stand You need to start with a square paper. 8.5" x 8.5 will work (from a piece of printer paper.) Medium level difficulty.
Draw So Cute. This website offers tutorials, videos, and coloring pages of things in the cute wide-eyed style a lot of you love.
Art For Kids Hub. This website includes many drawing videos that you might like.
Pull-tab Secret Message Origami Card. Make a sweet card for someone.
Paper Beads. This is a great way to use magazines and catalogues to make jewelry.
If you don't have paint... Make watercolors from old markers. You can use recycled jars for containers.
Paint with markers. Another way to "paint" if you don't actually have paint is to draw with water-based markers (like Crayola markers, not like Sharpies which are permanent), and then using a brush dipped in water and painting over your marker lines. The colors will blend and soften.
Take an online drawing class with a children's book illustrator.
More to come...
