Halloween Art History – Haring Cats

Halloween is the perfect holiday for learning about art history.

Our first artist is Keith Haring. When we focus on art history, we explore an artist or art movements. When looking at artists, we learn more about their style, technique and the subjects of their work. We also learn about how the artist fits into a community, a movement or how their art captures a moment in history. Learn more about Keith Haring’s work at haring.com.

Click on the link to visit our You Tube channel for the full process video and instructions

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHT78BqPvr9I0Fh1H9aLHUQ?view_as=subscriber

In the video, to make our Haring Cats, we used geometric shapes, a bold black outline and bright colors, PLUS we learned a classic technique to enlarge our drawings!

I have also added some student work in the pictures below. As you can see, you can use all sorts of different silhouettes to complete your cats.

I’ll be back with more Halloween Art History during the month of October.

If you have been enjoying the videos and posts, follow us on FB, Instagram or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Please also consider contributing to supporting FREE arts programming by buying me a coffee at – https://www.buymeacoffee.com/pattemade.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the process and some student work too!
Thanks for watching and keep creating!

Patty

STUDENT WORK – USING DIFFERENT CAT SILHOUETTES

STUDENT WORK IN PROGRESS ENLARGED FROM TINY REFERENCE PHOTOS

Spiders, Bugs and Insects! Oh my!

Hello, hello!

Today’s Story Time Read Aloud is Miss Spider’s Wedding by David Kirk. You can see the video read aloud and video tutorial at Art Out of Anything on FB and Instagram.

I love insects. I love reading about them, drawing them and creating mashed up illustrations of insects and other animals! David Kirk’s stunning paintings that illustrate Miss Spider’s Wedding, remind us how beautiful insects are and also how beautiful a little feeling called love is too.

When I decided to make insects for this project, I didn’t have any clay or dough and I thought maybe other people might not have any either. SO, I have made some simple insects using paper, tape, straws, shish kabob sticks, paint and glue. You can also use chopsticks and Q-Tips or pencils.

Below you will find links to sites that show you how to make your own dough at home, learn more about insects and some free downloadable templates for inspiration.

Steps –

Wings – I am sure you have probably seen this classic symmetry activity. It’s the easiest and prettiest way to get pairs of wings for your insect.

fold a piece of paper in half
place paint, directly from bottle or tube, near the center crease of the paper.
add as many colors as you like but make sure you are using small amounts of paint. You don’t want the paint to leak out!
once you have all the paint colors you like, close the paper on the crease so it’s folded again
begin spreading out the paint in between the two halves of the paper.

You can see the paint faintly through the paper and can shape the wings by using your hands and spreading the paint. Open your paper and you have your wings!

In my project, I used an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of copy paper and once dry, was able to cut out 3 pairs of wings.

I also made a “bee” using paper and tape. It’s easy to mold paper into shapes and hold together using tape. You can watch me complete that little bee on the video.

Science Connection – Insects are some of the most interesting species on the planet. Here are some links to learn about the difference between insects, bugs and more –

Bug or Insect? , Facts About Bugs and Insects , Parts of an Insect, 14 of the World’s Wildest Insects

FREE downloadable templates – Beetle , Spider , Ladybug

Play dough and clay recipes – Recipe #1 , Recipe #2 , No cook Recipe #3

Here are some amazing insects that some of my students made using Model Magic, a template and cardboard.

Here’s one of my insect mash-ups – it’s an illustration I did for one of my favorite books, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

Enjoy making your bugs and insects and I will be back with new art projects next week. Follow us on FB and Instagram for new videos!

Thanks for visiting and keep creating!

Patty

Drawing with Glue

You can watch the step by step video for this project at Art Out of Anything on FB and Instagram. New projects posted every week on Tuesday and Thursday!

Today’s project is an old favorite, with a new twist. In keeping with our motto of “work with what you have”, drawing with glue just got a little interesting.

Supplies –

white glue
paper – construction paper, card stock, cardboard or all of these
sand
glitter

Sand and glitter will be used as your pigments (colors). No sand? No glitter? You’ve got great powdered pigments right in your kitchen cabinets!

I used the following:

salt
sugar
pepper
condiments like onion powder, paprika, nutmeg, cinnamon, dry mustard, ground or instant coffee etc.

cups with powder pigment 2 — I put my powdered pigments into little plastic shot glasses, but you can use yours straight from the original containers too.

A great addition to this project is to have some music playing and “draw” to the music. Music and art are very good companions. It’s interesting to see how different kinds of music can inspire you and your kiddo to create.

You can start drawing a free hand design by letting the glue flow and drip from the bottle.

If you want to get a steadier line, place the tip of the glue bottle at an angle on the paper and use it like a pencil to draw.

Tap the container to control how much powdered pigment is added to the drawing.

You can use only one color at a a time for each drawing or you can use a variety of colors to get lines that fade into eachother. That’s my favorite technique.

Multi color on white paper

Give the glue a little time to dry so it doesn’t drip when you pour off the extra colors. Remember, the thicker the line the longer it will take to dry.

Once your piece is complete, be sure to save the excess pigment. Now you’ll have what I like to call, the very special Pre K Rainbow color mix that you can use for more projects 🙂

I’ve gotten a little fancy with my paper here and will use my Pre K Rainbow color mix as my pigment.

As you can see, there are so many different ways you can experiment with pigments and one of the most interesting results, is that you end up with a pretty fragrant work of art. See if you can find condiments that work well together in terms of their scents. Nutmeg, cinnamon and sugar might just inspire you to make a glue drawing of cupcakes or a pumpkin pie!

Resources and Project Extension – When I do this project in an Art Out of Anything workshop, I always start by introducing a popular art from from India called Rangoli. Here’s a link to the history of this beautiful art form, the traditional process and free templates to download to try your own – https://www.dltk-kids.com/world/india/mrangoli.htm

Once all of your amazing artwork is completely dry, shake off any excess pigment and if needed, carefully brush off any left over pigment with a soft paintbrush or tissue.

One last thing, no white glue? No problem, glue sticks work just fine too.

glue stick fish 13 — Glue sticks dry much faster than liquid glue so you have to work a little faster, this would be a good time to play some peppy music!

Thanks so much for visiting.

Keep creating,

Patty

Storytime and Paper Puppets

Today at Sea of Visibility on FB I posted my first Story Time Art Project; The 3 Little Pigs Build Their Dream House. Click on the link – https://www.facebook.com/seaofvisibility/ to watch.

And of course, you can also see it at Art Out of Anything on FB.

Fairy Tales, we all know how they begin – Once Upon a Time, and we know how they end – They lived happily ever after…
But did you know that everything in between can change? We’ve all seen many different versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty etc.

Creating their own versions of well known stories helps kiddos develop comprehension, vocabulary and writing skills. Critical thinking skills are also engaged as they analyze text and re imagine a different path for the characters and maybe even a whole new plot!

Today I will show you just one way you can make your own paper puppets to inspire your version of a favorite fairy tale.

Project Materials – Our motto “work with what you have” is a perfect guide to finding supplies and materials that you can re purpose for art making.

Card stock – any sturdy paper will do including construction paper or my favorite cereal boxes.
Popsicle sticks – you can also use straws or even pencils
Tape and/ or glue
Decorative Paper – I used scrapbook paper but you can also use pictures cut out of magazines, old books or you can draw your own.
Colored pencils – any drawing tool to add color and designs if you want to.
Scissors

Project Steps – These are my characters; Chip, Skip, Clyde and Leonard E. Wolf. I drew my characters but you can use any of the above mentioned materials to create your own. Prince? Princess? Dragon?

Once I drew my characters and colored them in, I carefully cut them out and glued them onto Popsicle sticks, you can also use tape to attach them.

In my story, I needed 3 houses, each one a little sturdier than the other. After drawing and cutting out my houses, I used recycled materials I had around the house to finish my puppets. For the “straw” house I glued on fabric scraps, yarn and straws. I also added a little glitter on the roof to make it sparkly. The house of “sticks” was a tree house made with straws, toothpicks and broken Popsicle sticks. Finally, the brick house was made using some sticky vinyl and broken DVD’s. I got lucky having the sticky vinyl around but could have used colored glitter instead. Please be careful when cutting up DVD’s or CD’s as they tend to like to crack in interesting ways – definitely a grown up activity! Once done I attached astick Popsicle again to each.

The Setting for my version of this story was an enchanted forest. I was very lucky to have a really good selection of scrapbook paper that I cut into the shapes of trees and a half moon to complete my background. If you don’t have the perfect paper lying around, then you can draw or use clip art or coloring book pages to complete your backdrop. I have added some resource links at the bottom to get you started!

Finally, Leonard E. Wolfe’s new home. Again, I used scrapbook paper and sticky vinyl. Here’s a picture of his tower with the light shining through the windows. Colored tissue paper is perfect for stained glass windows. You can even paint or color white tissue paper to create the effect of stained glass!

Now YOU are ready to make your own paper puppets and create your own story!

Here are some links for templates and coloring pages you can use for inspiration –

Fairy Tale Printable story coloring pages

Here are free printable templates of the characters in my story. I would love to see your version!

Chip Skip Clyde Leonard E. Wolfe

“Straw” House House of “sticks” Stained Glass House Wolfe’s Dream House

If you’re having a hard time getting your story started, here’s a great place that provides all kinds of fun and interesting writing prompts for inspiration – Writing Prompts for Kids

Thank you soooo much for visiting and I hope to see what you come up with! You can post your creations at Art Out of Anything on FB and Instagram. Be sure to follow us for complete videos and more projects!

We are proud to collaborate with Sea of Visibility, a community collective that seeks to support and encourage expression through the arts.
As a member and collaborator, I am thrilled to be a part of creating engagement and providing support through the arts, especially at a time when we all understand how important the arts are to our physical and mental well-being..
Be sure to visit and like Sea of Visibility on FB for our weekly programming schedule.

Keep creating,

Patty

Transparent, Translucent, Opaque. Making Paper!

Handmade paper using tissue paper scraps and Mod Podge.

Hello everyone, it’s a stormy day here in NY and perfect for making some home made paper.

There are a few different ways to make your own paper using recycled materials, most of them involve making paper pulp and lengthy drying times. Although this version is not as versatile as conventional paper making techniques, it is a lot quicker and can be done with a few simple ingredients.

Our new paper will also help us to explore the properties of transparency (see-through), translucency (partially see-through) and opaqueness (not at all see-through).

Supplies – plastic baggie ( I prefer the gallon size), white glue or decoupage glue (like Mod Podge), brushes, water, container, paper scraps. Paper scraps can include tissue paper, newspaper, magazines, paper towels, parchment paper (used for baking), gift wrap paper, tracing paper. Any paper that is on the thin side will work. Copy paper, construction paper and the like will probably not give you the same results, although I always encourage experimentation with materials! Knowing what doesn’t work is just as important as knowing what does.

STEPS –

cut the plastic baggie so you have 2 flat pieces of plastic. You will use one piece for now.
tear paper into strips and/or smaller pieces.

Glue method –

add some water to white glue in a container. The mix should look like thin pancake mix. If it’s too thick, it will take too long to dry.
Use the brush to “paint” glue mixture onto the plastic baggie. I do this in sections instead of covering the whole piece. This way the glue doesn’t dry out quickly.
lay down a layer of paper scraps on top of glue and “paint” another coat of glue on top of the first layer of paper. Place paper scraps on top of each other in different directions to make them bond to each other better. Think of a fabric weave, how the crossing threads bind the fabric together.
continue layering paper and coating with glue in between until you have at least 3 layers of paper and glue.
give the entire surface one last coat of glue mixture and set aside to dry.

Once dry, peel new paper off plastic baggie carefully. The glue method took a few hours to dry and produced a matte (not shiny), textured surface of new paper.

Opaque paper — Opaque and translucent new paper using newspaper, tissue paper and white glue.

Decoupage Glue Method –

follow the same steps as above, but do not dilute the decoupage glue.
this method dries much quicker (30-45 minutes) and produces a glossy (shiny), smooth surface.

Stained Glass paper — Translucent paper using tissue paper scraps and decoupage glue.

What can I do with my new paper?

Your new paper can be used to draw on, as collage materials for another project, as a window decoration even as wrapping paper!

Be sure to visit Art Out of Anything on FB for today’s complete video with step by step demos and more ideas to extend this project.

Here are some links to explore –

Free Stained Glass Patterns– print out these templates and trace onto the plastic sheets with a permanent marker to make a design with your paper scraps. Once dry, you can trace over the design with the marker again to make a stained glass window effect.

Art Vocabulary for Kids – did you know art has it’s own vocabulary?

Making Paper at Home – here’s a more traditional paper making technique you can try at home.

Don’t forget to check out Art Out of Anything on FB for the complete video of this project and follow us on Instagram @artoutofanything for more activities and resources!

Thanks for visiting, stay safe and keep creating!

Patty

Yes! You can play ball in the house!

Hi again!

Today we learned about shapes using paper and tape. When I make art I love to use re purposed materials. Anything that is lying around the house is a potential new art supply.

Having a look in my recycling bin, I grabbed a few sheets of newspaper and made some pretty awesome newspaper balls! But they’re not just newspaper, they are soccer balls, basketballs, baseball, bowling balls even juggling balls. You can make them as big or small as you like.

Apart from learning new vocabulary words like sphere and 3 dimensional, you can also explore some math concepts by comparing size and weight. Try adding different kinds of “paper” like aluminum foil, tissue paper, plastic wrap, even old holiday wrapping paper works well and will give you a chance to explore textures and experiment with how well they work to help the balls bounce off surfaces, but not off each other!

Can you make a football? A Frisbee? Ok those last 2 are not spheres but you can see how easy it would be to take this project to the next level 🙂

Remember – work with what you have.

Visit @artoutofanything on FB to see the video, learn more and don’t forget to show me what you made!

Thanks so much for visiting and I’ll be back next week,

Patty