Colouring In Canvas

I have noticed in the craft shops that there are canvases with pictures already outlined on them. This seemed to me to be a brilliant idea. The picture is there, all I have to do is provide the artists, paint and art smocks. Simple.

This is Christopher's lion. Once the paint was applied the outline was lost so he re-drew the lion when it was finished. This would work well with colouring in sheets too.

Getting Ready for Spring

I can't wait until the warmer weather comes. With the coming of the warmer weather are the flowers. Just what I need after a long and bleak Canberra Winter.

Even though spring is still a few days away I thought we'd start to decorate the house with spring flowers. Cue the paint and art smocks.

Here we have the canvas on the kitchen bench with a child either side. I thought if I gave each one a colour then there would be no arguments over the paints. So out of necessity we have a sky and grass.

Where would spring be if we didn't have any flowers? James cut various sized circles out of material and we put them together in groups of 3. Then Imogen went through my button collection to find some pretty buttons to decorate the flowers with. Some glue to stick it all together and then we have our flowers made, ready to attach.

Here is the final painting. James dotted the stalks on in a slightly darker green, the clouds were also dotted on with sponges. The sun is glue and an entire packet of glitter. We probably didn't need quite so much glitter, but I wasn't watching when the children tipped it on to the glue! Pity my vacuum cleaner is being repaired as now we have to try and sweep the glitter up.

Rocket Picture

Remember the splatter paintings we did the other day? Well, after letting them dry we did go on to make rocket pictures.

James is very interested in rockets, space, aliens and astronauts at the moment. Possibly the result of following the Curiosity Rover a little bit too much over the last week. To ensure he had a proper rocket, we found a colouring in sheet for him to decorate, then we cut out the rocket and glued it on to the painting.

James had a look at the picture and said that the rocket was missing something. On closer enquiry he said it was missing the red hot fire that the rocket has to try and run away from. Glitter and glue provided the flames to propel the rocket into space (I admit that I told him that the flames usually came from the engines and were used to propel the rocket - Youtube provided some examples we watched). While looking for the glitter we came across a sheet of star stickers and an empty frame, so of course we had to use them both. The frame was perfect for the picture and adds a nice finishing touch.

James is just sticking the final star sticker on to the picture. I liked it so much that we have hung it on the wall in our hallway. It looks rather good under the red light there.

Volcanoes

We went to a session on Volcanoes at Science Time (Questacon - the local science museum) and discovered that bi-carb soda and vinegar is useful for more than just cleaning. In fact, if you have a volcano then you can colour the vinegar red and use it to mimic an eruption.

I had a volcano making kit in my cupboard, but had previously thought that the children were too young for it. After seeing how much fun they had at Science Time, I changed my mind. With a little help from me, the children mixed up the plaster and poured it in to the mould. We left it to dry.

Once the volcano was dry we removed the plastic mould and painted it a murky brown (I had to look up my colour chart to help me remember how to make a brown colour paint as I didn't have any - it is green and red for anyone who wants to know!)

Waiting for it to dry...again. And then the explosion. I found a big tub to put it in and let the kids loose with the vinegar and bi-carb. I find it hilarious to sit and listen to the children making up stories about the dinosaurs they have set up around the volcano.

Splatter Painting

In the cupboard we have a lot of black cardboard. It is not quite as versatile as other coloured card. It isn't much good for drawing on, it is too sombre for the average painting and there are only so many wheels the average cardboard car needs. One thing I really like using it for is splatter painting. This is a great activity and the resulting art work can be used as wrapping paper, cards and as the background for sticking shapes on. It also has the benefit of fitting any age group (it gets a tick for being a single activity that all my children can do together without me having to thing of age appropriate variations)

Here are the pictures from today - the kids didn't bother washing the paint brushes between colours so there is an interesting swirl through the colours.

And then we get to use it to make something else...these are destined to be the night sky behind rockets blasting into space.

Panda Mask

A search of my cupboard this week showed me that the one item we lack is a paper plate. It is rather hard to make a paper plate mask without one. However, since the kids wanted to make the mask now and not at an unspecified date in the distant future, we needed to find an alternative.

We unearthed some plastic plates in the kitchen cupboard to make the mask. Because it was a plastic plate I cut out the holes for the eyes and found a picture of a panda for the kids to copy. This is what they came up with. The ears are made from scraps of furry material glued onto cardboard. The rest is just a black marker.

Finally we found a paddle pop stick to tape on to hold the mask in place. Much easier than having to tie and untie the strings all the time.

Papier-mâché Dinosaur and Lion Masks

More Papier-mâché. This time the boys wanted to make dinosaur and lion masks.

Like the puppy mask, we covered half of the balloon and let it dry. We then cut out cardboard shapes to form the frill. I taped them on with masking tape and the boys covered it with more glue and paper to ensure a lasting frill. We used twisted pieces of newspaper taped on to form the lower horn and covered them with more glue and paper.

Now to leave the mask to dry after all of these additions (perhaps 3 days as it is winter), all that is left is for me to cut out the eyes and let the boys paint it in the colour of their choice. We might leave the painting until the weather is a little warmer.

The Lion mask is much simpler. It simply consists of making the basic mask shape out of papier-mâché, cutting eyes out, painting and drawing on the nose/mouth. Once that is done the mane is made out of two different colours of crepe paper cut into strips and glued or stapled on. All that is left to do now is attach some string so it can be worn as a mask.

Since masks and dress-ups are popular in our house I might as well start the boys on making a whole collection of mask shells for the next time they want to make one. It would be much simpler to pull out a pre-made shell.

(days have passed) and now we have our painted mask!