My Masterpiece

Look at the mess in my art area (including my lovely cup of tea in a giant mug my Uncle Arthur made)! It is a productive mess, but still a mess. It really makes it hard for me to tell Ian to clean up with things looking like this in my space. But anyway, I was once again inspired by a blog, and can't remember specifically which one and now I can't find the original post. It was basically what to do with all those wonderful pieces of art that your kids produce. In my case it is countless amounts by both boys. Ian is still mostly into abstract art so that seemed to lend itself well to this project.

 In the end I cut or punched out 192 - 1 1/2 inch squares of miniature masterpieces. For a final piece that measures 18 by 24 inches. It took longer than I thought it would, but in the end it was worth it. I was also required to replace several squares when Sean got his hands on a green marker and messed with my color scheme. This was like making a big quilt out of paper. The final piece includes lots of painted pieces, crayons, markers, spin art, drip paintings, liquid water color, regular water color, tissue paper collage, painted zebra duck tape and lots lots more! I used an old poster I had that I was not ready to just throw out. It was a nice sturdy piece of card stock that I could use double sided tape to hold all the papers down. I put them all on the back so someday I will come across the nice photo of the Grand Cannon on the other side.

 I hung the final piece on the wall in the art room. I am not thrilled with this plastic frame, so I may need to find something better. Maybe a black frame with a nice white mat board. I am not sure yet. I just wanted to get it up on the wall so the kids don't continue to add their special touches to it and so I could get a few things cleaned up.

I think with all the scrap artwork leftover I will make a bunch more squares for the next toddler playdate at the house.  

mixing with water and paint

Here is one for Sean, but Ian also really enjoyed it. This is found at the Play at Home Mom a Blog I really enjoy and get a lot of inspiration from. It was really simple, although I made a few adjustments. 

I keep tons of empty bottles around for the kids kitchen so I went through them and found some that would work for this project. After finding a handful I simply put a small squirt of washable kids paint in each bottle and filled it with water. After a quick shake the colors were great. The paint was also so watered down there was little risk of staining anything. After filling everything I just let the kids have fun. I put the sensory table out also for a space for mixing to happen.  

Water balloon painting

That's right, after thinking about it for a while the perfect opportunity came about to fill water balloons with Paint! We decided after the successful drip painting that it was time for some more exciting painting techniques. 

To fill the balloons I took the back off a syringe and filled it with paint. Then I filled a deflated balloon with as much paint as I could fit. After that I carefully filled it with water hoping that it did not explode while I filled it.

Then the fun began. Ian was really excited to get to drop the balloons onto the paper I placed on the ground under the swing set. To help the impact I also put a piece of wood under it.

Boms away! went the first balloon and it bounced on first impact. So we tried again, and again, until finally it exploded. It was a bit of a small target and after one balloon the paper was soaked and not that interesting looking. So we decided to switch to the canvas that I have for outdoor painting. It is meant to be washed and reused so this was perfect. It is also backed with a waterproofing paint so we would not loose our artwork. 

We also tried some close impact explosions.

 Here is a good impact shot...

And the final canvas shot.

That artwork that it produced was not that interesting to look at because the paint was so watered down. so it will be tossed into the washer for the next time. It was however tons of fun and Ian just wanted more and more paint bombs. Sean slept through this project, but I am sure he might get some enjoyment from it also.

Coloring flowers

We have been very busy since coming back from England with lots of projects. After unsuccessfully trying to color carnations in England I saw someone try and color daisies. Our yard is full of daisies so we thought we would give this another try. 

To begin we went into the yard to pick some daisies. Ian was not happy with just picking daisies, he wanted to pick several other types of flowers also to see what would happen. 

Next we pulled out our giant test tubes and filled them all with water and then some food coloring.

 

 Then we added the flowers and waited for results. Someone said they had seen results within hours, but I think it took a bit longer than that, but certainly by the next day.

Ian did not want to wait so he decided to put coloring directly on this marigold. 

Finally...here are the results. They were really cool. These were the best ones.

painting with fiber fill

Not to leave out Sean, he paints also. Here he is painting with fiber fill that I had lying around. We clipped it with a clothes pin and went to town. This was basically Ian's idea but Sean seemed to really enjoy it.

Then Ian wanted his globs of paint and fiber fill to stick to the paper so he added glue. So what Ian does Sean also has to do...

The boys enjoyed this a bit. Ian just likes to be creating and building a lot of the time. Sean is far more delicate with his painting and does not always like getting paint on his hands.

Drip painting

Did some new paintings with Ian a couple weeks ago that he described as AWESOME. I don't think Ian has ever described an art project as awesome, well not since the the volcano explosion project. But that was more of a science experiment than an art project. Anyway, saw this on some blog (of course =) )and thought it was a great opportunity to use up some old paint in these small containers. Ian was not interested at first when I mentioned it, but when he saw the photo he was ready to start right away. The weather outside was not great, so I contemplated doing this inside, but I am glad we did not. So here we go...we added a bit water to the containers and gave them a bit of a shake. This was part of the appeal to Ian also. Then set up shop outside on a quick easel. Again thank goodness we were outside, where would all that paint have ended up?
Ian enjoyed "racing" the paints down the paper and adding different amounts of water to get them to go faster. This is where we threw in some good vocabulary...we got to talk about the viscosity of the paint. This is a big term in the printing industry (which is what I have my masters in) He didn't pay too much to the descriptions, but he loved adding more and more color watching them mix also on the board.
Adding more water...

We ended up with a few of these paintings and I might try and frame them in the art room they came out so cute.

Based on this success we are going to do some more physical style paintings that seem to interest boys. I saw some stuff with water balloons filled with paint and using fly swatters to really get a splat! Maybe incorporate the swing set...think Jackson Pollock from great heights...hmmm lots to think about, good thing it is warm outside.

I also saw some great painting in rain boots, dipping them in paint and walking down the paper. There is just not enough time in the day!

colored water experiment

Ian loves experiments. He loves playing with water and he loves color. So to combine all his favorites what is a mother to do? Let her son play with some water and food coloring. This experiment was a huge success and we did it while Sean was napping. Ian enjoyed making the colors by adding the food coloring and he enjoyed mixing them in the ice cub trays to create all sorts of new colors and shades. I had a plastic syringe (with no needle of course!) and he love how it would suck up the water when he pulled it back and he could squirt it back out where he wanted it. Finally after the trays were full we put them in the freezer checking every few hours to see if they were frozen. When they finally were they came out of the tray for more fun and pretend tea making. Then Ian added some more water to the dirty trays to get lighter colored ice cubes and the fun could begin again the next day. I feel like this sort of thing can almost never get old for Ian. Based on that I found a web site which has awesome things for kids who like science. http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/ I ordered some of their instant snow powder and some of their water jelly crystals. Can't wait for them to arrive. Their video clips have some great ideas. And the next time someone says what should I get for Ian I am going to send them to this web site.
So back to the colors that we were working on. Now we just have to print out some photos from the experiment and put it together in a book. We wrote down our observations when Ian was mixing colors so we will just add them in. Finally we will make a color wheel to remind us how all the colors can be made. Some of Ian's observations included how to make darkest and lightest brown. Not sure where on the color wheel that will make it, but we will certainly make sure to mention it.

Mines Falls

These are old, but we took the kids to Mines Falls over Spring Break (2 weeks ago) and no one fell into the canal. So that makes the trip a success. Some of the kids did try, but thankfully we all stayed dry. The kids enjoyed some red light green light, but their favorite part was throwing things into the water. (sticks, leaves and rocks) The path that we walked took us about an hour to walk and had about 4 bridges, over 2 small waterfalls and ran along the canal. We also spotted lots of turtles sunning themselves in the water and several trees that had fallen down. The kids got a kick out of making up stories about how the trees fell over. First it was the normal wind, rain, rotting, but then we talked about the the possibility of elephants escaping from the zoo to knock it down. Anyway it was nice to get some fresh air with the kids and honestly it was amazing we saw any wildlife considering how loud we all were.

Spin Art

So many projects so little time! I think scrapbooking is actually easier than maintaining this blog. But alas, I digress...I recently (Oh, 6 months ago) got a fancy new salad spinner because I did not like that mine had holes on the bottom and tossed the old one in the yard sale pile. Then a friend said we should use it for spin art, and a new project was born. It was put on the back burner for a while because there are so many projects on our list. Finally yesterday we had the opportunity when Ian had a friend over for a play date. At first the kids were not interested, but either way I was going to give it a spin. (he..he..pun intended =) Anyway as soon as things started getting set up and Ian saw the paint and salad spinner he was sold. Ian's friend was sold as soon as she saw the paint come out.
So using the old salad spinner we lined the basket with tin foil because as mentioned earlier there are holes in the bottom of my spinner. Dropped in some round paper and some paint and we were off and running!





We decided when we were finished that when the kids painted on the plates and then spun them we had slightly more interesting results and much better coverage on the paper. The kids however really enjoyed dropping the paint directly on the paper.
Now what to do with these colorful disks, I saw someone make a hanging mobile out of them and I really liked that. If I get to it I will post a photo. But otherwise this was a nice way to fill a morning.