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

Shaving Cream Marbling!

Today’s project video can be watched on our FB page by clicking on this icon – FB

This is a really easy and fun project that blends science and art because they always go together so well. Below you will also find a link to the science behind the magic.

Supplies –

shaving cream
paper
food coloring
Popsicle stick or pencil
old cookie tray or flat aluminum tray
ruler or straight edge like a piece of cardboard
towel or paper towels

Optional or Instead of –

If you don’t have access to a cookie sheet or aluminum tray, you can also use a piece of wax paper or aluminum foil. Be sure to tape it down to the surface (table) you are using so it doesn’t move while you are transferring the color.

You can also use paint, ink or even those small tubes of decorating gel for cakes if you don’t have food coloring.

Process –

shake shaving cream until it feels cold, that’s when you know it’s ready to use.
spray cream onto the sheet or surface you are using. Use a small amount to try it first.
spread out the cream with the ruler or straight edge. Don’t make it too thin.
add drops of food coloring on top of the shaving cream.
use stick or pencil to swirl colors, don’t over mix or you will not get the marbling effect.
once you are happy with your design, place your paper on top and gently press down. Not too hard! the colors will transfer to your paper.
lift off paper, use ruler to scrape off the cream and you are done!

Make some more! Here is my finished piece that I made in the video and some close ups of the colored shaving cream. The patterns that stay in the cream are so cool!

Here is a link to a website that will explain the properties of materials, that we explore in this art project – Cool Science for Kids

Thanks for visiting and be sure to check out the video at our FB and Instagram pages!

Keep creating,

Patty

Rothko Inspired Rainbows

Today’s Story Time read aloud was “The Rainbow Goblins” by Ul de Rico. This is a stunningly illustrated book that tells the story of the Valley of the Rainbows and the greedy goblins who want to steal all the beautiful colors.

Rainbows are magical and even the scientific explanation for their origin is the stuff of wonder. Light streaming through water molecules at just the right angle to bend light? Amazing. White light that actually carries the spectrum of colors? Incredible. Nature and science really are magic and so is art.

You can watch the read aloud video and see how I created the mini rainbows above at Sea of Visibility on FB.

Rothko was an abstract artist who expressed emotions with color. he also tried to make viewers feel certain emotions only using color.

When I was playing with lipstick, eye shadow and nail polish to blend and combine colors, I was reminded of Mark Rothko’s abstract color paintings. Just trying out different color combinations and blending the different pigments together made me happy. I thought I knew what result I would get but was pleasantly surprised every time.

Here are two great sites to visit to learn more about the artist Mark Rothko and to make your own rainbow experiments.

Rainbow Science and Who is Mark Rothko?

Here are some more mini rainbows I made today. How do they make you feel?

Thanks so much for visiting.

Keep creating!

Patty

Art is Messy – action painting with yarn

I used acrylic paint, yarn, thread, water and clothespins.

Monoprint of a section of unfinished action painting.

Completed action painting laying flat to dry.

The left over parts of an art activity can be interesting too!

Happy Earth Day!

Today’s art project video can be viewed at Art Out of Anything on FB and @artoutofanything on Instagram.

With this project we continue to offer art activities that you can do at home or in the classroom with much of what you already have on hand so you can work with what you have!

Action painting is exactly what it sounds like, painting with movement.

Jackson Pollock was a painter know for his action paintings. You can see him painting and hear him talking about his artistic process in this video – SFMOMA – Paintings have a life of their own.

You can also visit his house on the east end of Long Island in NY or virtually at Pollock-Krasner House. His wife, Lee Krasner was also an amazing artist.

Pollock’s paintings are not only colorful and lively, they also contain fractals, which is another example of how math can be found everywhere in art.

Today we will make our own action painting using yarn and paint.

Project Steps – the steps for this project work best being viewed but I will give you the abridged version here.

gather your materials – I used acrylic paint, pieces of yarn and embroidery thread, clothespins, cups, paper and paint.
cover you work space with an old sheet or tablecloth or even a garbage bag.
pour paint into cups, add a splash of water if paint is too thick
clothespins are used to pick up yarn pieces and dip them into the paint cups. Make sure to coat the yarn as much as possible with the paint.
once your yarn is ready, lift it out of the cup with the clothespin and drop it onto the paper that is your canvas. You can also drag the yarn on the paper or shake it so it create splatters.
I would suggest leaving the yarn on the paper until you have completed your piece so that the paint has time to soak into the paper. This also creates a more cohesive finished piece.
once you feel your piece is done, remove the yarn using the clothespins or your fingers. You can even use chopsticks or tweezers!

You can lay your finished masterpiece flat to dry or hang it. If you have runny paint on your piece, your painting will change as the paint drips while it is hanging. Just be sure to place some newspaper or another garbage bag under the hanging painting to catch the drips.

I mentioned the word fractals earlier. A fractal is a never ending pattern. They can be found in math equations and in the world all around us from tree branches to snowflakes. Scientists who have analyzed Pollock’s seemingly random placement of paint, have discovered these never ending patterns in his work. Can you think of how that would happen when he was dripping and dropping paint and lots of other objects into his paintings without any obvious intentional placement? I have my own theory but you have to watch the project video for that!

Here are some links to really interesting articles about their theories and what they found –

Discover Magazine

A Scholarly Blog

Here are some interactive sites where you can see how fractals work and create your own –

Experimenting with Fractals, Math Fairy, Kids , Interactive Fractal Machine

Here are some links to online drawing tools to create your own, not so messy action painting –

Scratch MIT , Nick jr. Drawing

I hope you enjoy getting messy and exploring the wonderful world of fractals and art.

Follow us on FB and Instagram @artoutofanything for weekly videos and activities. You can also contact us at eljaiekart@gmail.com or direct message us at FB and Instagram if you are interested in remote professional development workshops or homeschooling workshops.

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

Collagraphy and The Scientific Method

Hey all!

Today we are using the scientific method to determine which style of collagraph works best for printing.

A collagraph (sometimes spelled collograph) is a method of printmaking that involves adhering materials to a board or sturdy surface to build up a printing surface.

I decided to use the scientific method to explore different materials and printing pigments.

Observation – I have observed, by doing, that you can make prints (copies) of designs by using many different materials.
Questions – Can I make prints from cardboard, hot glue and foam sheets? Which pigment will make the best print; an ink pad, acrylic paint or lipstick?
Hypothesis – which combination of these materials will give me the most successful print?
Prediction – I think the hot glue will give me the cleanest print while the foam sheet will give me the best print all around. I think the cardboard will not give me a clear print. I also think the lipstick will give me the best color of all.
Test the prediction – I chose collagraphy as the printing technique to test my predication because I can use materials I have on hand.

TEST – you can watch the entire video of the process at https://www.facebook.com/artoutofanything/

Here’s a sneak peek of the process –

I used hot glue to create designs on a piece of cardboard. This does take a little practice as you have to make sure your design is raised and not flat. I also cut up a piece of adhesive backed foam sheet into an abstract design and adhered it to another piece of cardboard and then used cut up cardboard as another design. These will be my 3 printing plates.

Next, I experimented with 3 different pigments in the form of paint, lipstick and an ink pad. The amount of pigment placed on the printing plates is very important; too much and you get a gloppy, messy print, too little and you don’t get a clear print.

Here are the results. Which one do you think made the best print? Which print is clear, complete and clean? Was my hypothesis correct?

I used the ink pad on the cardboard plate

On the left plate I used lipstick. On the right plate I used acrylic paint

In my video, you can see some other techniques I tried while testing out my hypothesis!

You can also find some easy printmaking techniques in keeping with our motto “work with what you have”, at Tinkerlab.

Be sure to visit and follow me @artoutofanything on Instagram and FB.

Here’s the link again for the full length video – Collagraphs and The Scientific Method

Let’s see what other collagraphs you can come up with!

See you on Thursday and keep creating!

Thanks for visiting,

Patty

Math with Mondrian

$Mondrian math supplies$

Hey everyone!

Today I am working on my favorite art/math project! Using Piet Mondrian’s work to understand math is nothing new. His geometric masterpieces lend themselves to learning so many math concepts. Even as I was preparing my samples for today, I came up with a few new variations that I am looking forward to trying once we get back to the classroom!

Supplies – This is a list of only some of the materials I used. You can simplify or expand as you like. The more you experiment, the better!

Paper, scissors, construction paper, ruler, glue, colored pencils, markers, colored sand, paint, Popsicle sticks, cardboard, graph paper etc.

You can create your own version of a Mondrian using paper and pencil, colored pencil, markers etc. You can also make a textured Mondrian by using sand, glitter, pop sticks and cardboard.

Steps – using a straight edge, draw rectangles and squares on your canvas (drawing surface, cardboard). Refer to Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow for inspiration. Here’s a link to some more of his work and about the artist – Mondrian for Kids – Slideshare

Once you have filled your canvas with the composition, choose your colors and add them. As you can see, the artist left white space and always used bold black lines to break up the canvas. Of course, you can be as creative as you like and add different colors too, just not green. Do you know why Mondrian didn’t use the color green?

Math activities – apart from the obvious geometry found in Mondrian’s work, we also see perpendicular lines, straight lines, intersecting and parallel lines. There is definitely one super easy math concept that your Mondrian inspired work can help you learn.

Finding the Area of a square or rectangle–

Supplies – graph paper ( print some out here free printable graph paper online), colored pencils, markers of crayons, ruler or any straight edge.

Steps – draw your Mondrian inspired artwork directly on the graph paper. before you color in your shapes, challenge yourself to find the area by counting the squares up (vertical) and across (horizontal) of the squares and rectangles. You can multiply (area = length x width or width x height) or even count each square in the shape. Here is a fun link to use for practice – Square Area Interactive.

Mondrian has inspired so many math activities and you can see a few of them at the links below, and enjoy some other math activities with artists like Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso!

Math with Mondrian, Calder and more

Here’s a really tough one to challenge yourself! –

Advanced Mondrian Math Puzzles

I’d love to see your Mondrian inspired work and how you extended this activity.

Google Arts and Culture App – Mondrian Composition with Grid #1

The Google Arts and Culture app has so many activities available that it’s impossible to list everything! Their content also changes so be sure to check it out the link quick!!

Be sure to check out the video for this project and post your creations @artoutofanything on FB and Instagram.

See you next week , stay healthy and create!

Patty

Landscape and Perspective

It’s great to collaborate with other organizations and fantastic artists. I had so much fun presenting a workshop with Milestales founder AmaYawson in Far Rockaway.

We started the workshop with a few breathing exercises to get us in a calm, focused state. Arts as meditation is not a new concept and many of us achieve state of relaxed, focused concentration without even realizing it, most people commonly refer to it as being “in the zone”. Here are just a few of the amazing landscape paintings the students created using 1 point perspective. They were great!

1 point perspective Mountains

1 point perspctive Road

1 point perspective Pink Trees

Beach at Sunset

Shoreline

1 point perspective Summer

A Review of Student Work

We have been so busy, it’s been a while since our last post. I would like to showcase some of the amazing work the students have created at a few different venues with traditional and non-traditional materials. We have everything from giant food to insects.