CO-VID days dragging? Need something simple to keep your kids busy? Try Animal Block Art!
Supplies:
3 Blocks of Wood
3 Printed: Black and White Animal Heads
Paint/Paint Brushes/Cup of Water/Paper Towels
Mod Podge Matte Finish (yellow bottle)/Brush: 1 inch. Purdy
First, paint your blocks of wood with fun, bright colors: teal, pink, orange? Or red and purples? Or??? Up to you! Second, cut out the animal heads from the paper. Third, paint on a thin layer of Mod Podge on each block of wood. Then lay the animal head on the Mod Podge. Allow for the Mod Podge to dry. Then go back and put the top layer of Mod Podge over the paper. Then allow for it to dry. Now, you have beautiful artistic animal blocks to put on your walls!
-PC and Craft: 11 Crafts for Kids to Keep Them Busy During Lockdown, Heart Handmade
Tips: How to decorate with Mod Podge (without bubbles and wrinkles)
-Addicted2Decorating, Youtube
Kids stuck inside all day? Keep them focused on the joys of life with ArtStory Adventures!
Live, Zoom or DIY: 3 Weeks of Snowy ARTS Fun!
Each Week includes: Drawing animals, Painting snowscapes, Building, Creating… ARTS Education that’s fun! Weekly 45 min.-1 hour art classes with Claire, suited to your family’s schedule.
The pandemic has provided for more “home time” than ever before… which has lended new emerging artists (+ kids!) to “think outside of the box” as they have been “inside a box” (house) for way too long. See below to use household items in drawings & papier-mâché:)
An example is the “Ode to Helen Rosner’s Roast Chicken” by Agnes Barton, 39 from Corvallis, Oregon. She has been crafting with the things around her house during the pandemic. Barton-Sabo used “flour, water, masking tape, two issues of the New Yorker and acrylic paint” to share the joys of Helen Rosner’s viral video of “drying chicken skin with a hair dryer.”She wants her artwork during this time to evoke emotions of laughter by her ridiculous imagery(Cavna, 2020).
Another young man, Kristián Mensa in 2016 (before the pandemic), also reimagined “every day objects” to talented pieces of artwork! “To create these whimsical compositions, Mensa pairs…items with minimalist drawings that incorporate the 3D elements among bold lines.” He takes half of an orange (peeled) to use for the back of a turtle or a row of paintbrushes and draws a man mowing over them (Barnes, 2016).
Thankfully, we have outlandish artwork like these due to the work of the impressionists in the 19th century who wanted to go against the “rigid and carefully finished images of the Académies des Beaux-Arts (historical subjects, realistic themes and portraits)” and instead pushed for color, emotion, personality, and imagination in landscape and still life. It also opened the way, for a new modern medium, photography– which at first impressionists thought it “devalued their art skill” until they curved their perception and “sought to express nature and modern city life” in their own pieces (Lumen Learning, N/A)
Here is a painting from Dina D’ Argo, 56, from Springfield, Tennessee, whom used acrylic paints to paint “In the Void.” The painting shares the emotion of “stepping into the unknown.”As humans, we can’t see what is up ahead and so we move with uncertainty into the future. “The veil symbolizes not only the unwillingness to accept reality, but also our cultural preoccupation with covering or uncovering one’s face, and what it represents or says about who we are as a society…” The floating finally reminds the viewer that we must accept the chaos and go with the flow of life(Cavna, 2020).
How creative have your kids been during quarantine? Share with us! Email your images of artwork: claire@clairescreativeadventures.com with the subject line reading, “Quarentine Artwork” or tag your artwork on your social media accounts: Instagram: @clairescreative OR Facebook: @clairescreativeadventures and send us a quick instant message saying that you sent your artwork.
The holiday season is in full swing! In celebration, we played with color.
Our Art Adventurers explored color mixing by making their own age appropriated color wheel with watercolors!
Primaries, Secondaries, Tertiaries…oh my!
We then took inspiration from the Bauhaus painter, Wassily Kandinsky & created our version of his concentric (bulls-eye) circle color studies.
But included some radiating Hanukkah Lights!
Our Art Adventurers came up with some silly and interesting illustrations last week! After cutting out different shapes from our textures, we collaged to share a scene and tell a story. What great storytellers and a great way to end our Fall Semester!
