#192 – WHAT’S THE POINT?

Day 3 of kids art.  I opted for a classic, pointillism.

I’ve got to tell ya, I just love Pinterest when it comes to projects for kids.  There are teacher’s lesson plans, creative mom’s ideas and kids own contributions.  So many great ideas at the touch of a fingertip.

Here is a link to my Pinterset board titled “Kids Stuff”.  http://pinterest.com/merelyknew/kid-stuff/  I loaded this page with research on the topics I wanted to cover with the kids. I also allow my eldest to pin her interests to this page, so we can reference it for things to do.

So I covered the pointillism basics….Things like: There was an artist named Seurat who decided to use dots to create his images.  He also did not mix his colors on a palette.  He only placed the primary colors next to one another on the canvas in very close proximity, so that the viewers eyes mixed the colors, not the painter.  Seurat had a student named Paul Signac and he was also a very special pointillist.  I showed the kids their work as well as the work of Aboriginal artists.  The kids loved the color and freedom of the Aboriginal work. With that, we set off to paint.

I gave the kids only three colors, magenta, yellow and cyan blue.  I also gave them black and white paint as well.  I gave each color a Q-Tip and a cotton ball, so that each color had two different size dots.  Pencil erasers make terrific dots as well.

I took out a hair dryer so that the kids could quickly dry one paint color before moving onto another.  If you look at this dog, the student achieved orange and green.  It’s more from overlapping the color than close proximity, but I hope that she still understood the concept, which is the color mixing and achieving an image through the smallest of strokes.  The younger sister loved making dots, but really, she had interest in the theory.  She just likes to be a free spirit and do her own thing.  Two totally different approaches to the same concept.  It’s fun to see the kids personalities shine through.

With the rest of our time, we worked on stamp making, which was supposed to be adjoined to yesterday’s print making but we had run out of time.

Whereas print making utilizes an engraving technique, stamp making is the complete opposite.  It’s the art of creating a raised surface.  One is taking away surface, the other is adding or building up surface.

I just couldn’t help but want to join in on this activity, so I made a few stamps and we used my samples to experiment with producing a good print.  The younger student had a blast creating “the perfect pink” and using the brayer to thin and apply the paint to the stamp.  We found that a little water added to the acrylic paint (a very little) helped release the stamp from the paper.

Here were some of the kids stamp creations:

We had a tough time getting the glue on the stamps to dry due to the humidity and again, we ran out of time, so tomorrow we will make greeting cards with their stamps, so at the next special occasion, they can give something handmade.  I look forward to seeing them tomorrow.  I think they will be great!

Tomorrow is our final day. I plan on creating a variation of different homemade patterned papers with the kids which we will then create collages with.

We had a rainy humid week, so the paper mache will have to be completed in a week or so, when I can get back to it.  I have tons of paint, yarn, ribbon, glitter, jewels….you name it.  So I will post about them when we complete them.

That was it for today.  I’m going to go hang with my own kids now.  I miss them.

See you tomorrow!

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