Preschool - Christmas workshop

Merry Christmas!

We just finished up our preschool Christmas workshop today. We had 2 one hour classes and completed FIVE projects! Here is the scoop...

1. SNOWMAN FINGERS

I cut wood into 4x6" pieces and had the kids start by painting a blue and white background. I love that I gave them 2 shades of blue plus white paint and some mixed it all and had a solid background of blue, while others were more painterly using each color more independently on the board.

When the background was dried we painted our fingers and some of our palms white and printed them on the background.

Finally we used permanent markers and paint to detail our snowmen!

2.  SANTA HAND ornaments

The kids pressed their hand prints into some salt dough and we made a hole at the top for hanging. After letting them air dry for several hours I baked them in the oven for a few more hours at about 220 degrees.

Today we painted them, creating a cute Santa face to hang on the tree

3.  SNOWMAN MAGNET CLIPS

I glued popsicle sticks to some clothes pins and had the kids paint them white. Next we added a paper hat and a felt scarf. Finally, the kids drew on faces with permanent markers. These are so cute on the fridge or on a metal door to clip all those Christmas cards up for everyone to enjoy!

4. BUBBLE PRINT Christmas Trees

Bubble printing is so much fun. Just add some tempera paint to water and dish soap. Add a straw and every kids fantasy of blowing bubbles in their milk gets to come true! Add to that that we get to capture the bubbles on paper to make prints and it really can't get any better!

As you can see all the little people had tremendous fun blowing the bubbles and printing them. We cut them into triangles and mounted them on black paper. Finally, we used red and white paint on our fingertips to paint ornaments on and then a touch of yellow at the top for the star. 

Super fun, Super cute, and Super easy! *just remember not to suck in! :-)

5. THANK YOU CARDS

One thing you definitely need at Christmas time are thank you cards for all the wonderful service and gifts friends and family offer.

For this we used blue bubble prints that we created along side our green ones. We simply cute them to size and glued them to a card stock blank card. Voila, now we are ready to be grateful.

I think another beautiful addition to these cards would be a silhouette of the Nativity. Perhaps with older children.

Art Party!

Art Party

mixed media on canvas by the birthday girl

Welcome to my very first Art Party!

This past weekend I had the privilege of hosting a birthday party for a sweet 8 year old girl and 12 of her friends! I led them in an art class with two projects and then Mom and Dad provided lunch and, of course, cake!

For our first project we did a mixed media canvas. We started by painting a background in acrylics.

When the paint was dry we did some collage work.

Some of the kids used ink on top of the collage as well!

The Results!

In between drying times we worked on some faux Batik. You can see the full directions on how to do this here. I think the results were amazing! Check them out...

This was so much fun! I would love to host your art party. Contact me at artwithaubrey@gmail.com for more information on prices and booking.

Henri Matisse- drawing with scissors

"Icarus" - Henri Matisse

In this lesson we studied primarily the cut-out work of Henri Matisse. We began by discussing the life and art of Matisse. Theartstory.org is a great place to find information on specific artists and movements within art history. We learned how Matisse discovered his love for art during his recovery from appendicitis when he was 20 years old. From that point forward Matisse concentrated entirely on his art and with expression through color.

We watched this video about Fauvist art. This allowed us to see how differently color is used in portraiture and landscapes done by Matisse and his Fauvist friends. We talked about how color can be used to convey feelings, etc. 

Finally, we discussed how another illness in Matisse's later years led him to express himself through cut-outs rather than painting. Matisse was confined to a wheelchair at the end of his life and found painting difficult. Now he would begin to "draw with scissors"!  

We looked at cut-out art by Matisse in  the book "OOOH Matisse" as well as other library books. We also watched this video about his work named "Icarus" pictured above. We had a final discussion on color and positive and negative space and how each could effect the outcome of our art...

Now we were ready to work.

Here are some of our cut-out works

When our work was complete we had a terrific critique. What went right? What would we change? What is our story about our art vs. how others interpret it? How did we use color? How did we use positive vs. negative space. etc...