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!

A Rainbow of broken crayons

In our house I have a giant tin of crayons. Many of them have been worn down to tiny stubs, some are broken, and some are just too thin for little hands. I hate throwing out craft items that can be used, so I set out to find a use for all of these crayon pieces.

I have to admit that it took me quite a while until I hit on the thought of melting the crayons. Christopher wanted to make a rainbow, so we sat down and grated little piles of crayons and then we made little paper funnels to pour the shavings onto the page in rows. Once the shavings were in the rainbow shape we covered the paper with another blank page and ironed it on a low, no steam setting. When we removed the blank page we ended up with 2 rainbow pictures.

Chalk Drawings

I sometimes like the idea of making a picture that is even bigger than I am. Given that I have more practice house painting than canvas painting, chalk seems to be a good choice.

Chalk has the advantage of being easily washed away. It comes in many colours and can draw on almost anything. And I don't mind the children drawing on the concrete outside as I can easily wash it away when we are done (or leave it until the next time it rains, whichever happens first)

I had the boys lie down on the ground so I could trace around them and then let them colour the outlines in. A giant colouring in project. Here is one young man. He just needs some decoration and clothes.

Before I had a chance to trace a second boy, James drew a picture of himself pulling a grumpy face. I think it is a rather good likeness! :-)

Paper Plate Ladybird

Say hello to our friend Mrs Ladybird. This is a new addition to our insect collection. I am quite fond of the lopsided nature of this happy bug.

Organising my Cupboard

My lovely friend Ani asked me to write about how I organise my cupboard. Since I collect all sorts of boxes, bottle tops, odds and ends, it is rather an effort to keep my craft cupboard tidy. I try really hard not to cram things in, but when I am in a rush that is what happens.

Here is my cupboard. The top part with the lock is for the things that need an adult to supervise or I have collected for a particular purpose. The children have the bottom part of the cupboard and are allowed to use anything from there whenever they want. 

This is inside the children's part of the craft cupboard. It does need a bit more of a tidy up, but it gives you an idea of the way in which I organise it.

The bottom shelf is scrap paper and cardboard. My mother keeps all the coloured cardboard dividers when she has to shred documents for work. They are fantastic for drawing pictures on. There are also old newspapers and foam sheets.

The middle shelf is full of shoe boxes. Each shoe box is labelled with its contents. One has cardboard rolls, another has stamps, another has egg cartons, ribbons, matchsticks and so on. It makes it easy to know where everything is.

The top shelf has bags of material scraps on the left, empty boxes on the right and a red plastic box in the middle. This is the shelf that is in daily use and the contents of it are rarely the same two weeks in a row. If I was to take a photo of it next week then I have no doubt that the boxes would have been used and most of the material scraps. Then it would be a case of the types of recyclable materials we collect to replace them with.

The red box is the children's quick craft box. It has a selection of paper, ribbons, bottle tops, interesting pictures, scissors and glue. This is what they pull out every day and the rest of the craft items are used when they are making something in particular. I find if the container is too full, then the children become overwhelmed and don't make anything. I try and change the contents of the box regularly so that the children will have different items to inspire their artwork.It is our version of Play School's useful box.

Papier-mâché Hot Air Balloon

The glue recipe I use are 1 part flour to 5 parts water. I mix the flour with an equal amount of water first to get rid of the lumps before I add the rest of the water. I then heat it up in a pot on the stove until the mixture thickens. Since we tend to complete our papier-mâché over a few days, I usually add a few spoons of salt to the mix and store it in the fridge.

This was another occasion when we found that the balloons were piling up around the house again. We decided to do some papier-mâché, and covered the balloon. We weren't really sure of what we were going to make with it, but we had a few days between covering the balloon and it drying completely to work out. It just so happened that the hot air balloon festival coincided with this project, so the boys settled on making a hot air balloon. Rummaging around in the craft cupboard turned up a basket I had started to make and was unhappy with the result, so  I had abandoned. It would be perfect for the basket of the balloon.

When the shell of the balloon was dry, I divided the balloon up into 8 segments and left the boys to paint it. They took it in turns painting their segments. Once it was dry we attached the basket with scraps of wool and the boys made little people to travel in it. The balloon has been on all sorts of adventures with the boys. 

A twist on Colouring-In Sheets

I find colouring-in sheets rather boring. Especially when it is my younger children who are unable to grasp the concept of colouring inside the lines. So today we tried our hands at sticking balls of scrunched up tissue paper inside the lines. I think it worked rather well. The picture is meant to be a whale coming out of the water. We painted the glue on to the paper and then I left the children to stick the tissue paper on.

Pasta Necklaces

While trying to tidy up the house I found some interesting plastic string that I thought would make a quick and easy necklace for Imogen. What better way to procrastinate than find something fun to do with the kids. The cleaning can always be done later, but later the children might be too tired.

A quick check of the cupboard assured me that we do have pasta suitable for threading. We could just thread the penne pasta onto a string, but that would be BORING! Why not colour the pasta first and then let the kids loose with the pasta and string.

First we divided the pasta up into 4 ziplock bags and poured in a few drops of food colouring, closed the bags and shook them until all the pasta was covered.

Then we tipped the pasta on to a tray and put it in the sun to dry. 

Once the pasta was dry, we were able to make our necklaces. The necklace is adjustable to fit over the head and then be shortened to an appropriate length. What  do you think of our efforts?