Tag Archives: arts and crafts for children

Painted Eggs 3

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Seems I lost my mojo for a while, but I’m back with some painted eggs, and looking forward to sharing all sorts of projects with you. Artist Gustav Klimt provided inspiration for this year’s batch of eggs, as did Aesop’s fable, The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg.  Klimt was an Austrian painter (1862-1918), who was probably best know for his golden phase, which included incredible paintings like The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Aesop’s fable provides a classic lesson about greed, with plenty of versions online to share with your little ones. Grab your gold and happy painting!

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Filed under eggs, Gustav Klimt, painting

Painted Eggs 2

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Egg painting season is upon us, and this year, my daughter decided Andy Warhol was the way to go. Warhol was born in Pittsburgh in 1928, and like Roy Lichtenstein, who inspired these eggs, became an important figure in the Pop Art movement. His use of everyday objects, and popular images from celebrity culture and the world of advertising, took art in a new direction, making it less elitist and more of a celebration of “consumerism and mass culture.” Warhol left us with unforgettable images of Campbell’s Soup cans, Brillo boxes, and plenty of famous faces to use as inspiration for this year’s batch of eggs.

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Filed under Andy warhol, eggs, painting, Pop Art

Matchbox Stories

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A darling little ice storm hit Toronto on December 22nd, leaving about 300,000 homes without electricity for the holiday season. We chose to stay in our very cold house for two and a half days until the power came back on, and were definitely among the lucky ones, since as of this morning, there are a few hundred people still cold and in the dark. To mark this most unusual holiday season, here’s a project born in a matchbox, a true essential during a power outage.

Matchboox, which inspired this project, is a collection of small books folded accordion style, and neatly housed inside a matchbox. It’s a series created by editor Richard Meier, involving more than 70 artists, making some very cool art in a box.

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Filed under Books, collage, drawing, matchbox craft

Vinyl Stickers

Children love stickers, and making their own is a really cool way of showing off their ideas. When my son was a little guy he had such a passion for them, they covered his closet door as high as he could reach. The fun part came when he grew up and wanted them removed. So choose carefully where you’d like to place these little designs, so you can avoid reaching for the heat gun and sand paper in a few years.

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Painting a Galaxy

Our universe is made up of billions of galaxies. Each one is a collections of stars, dust, gas and dark matter, and found in either elliptical, spiral, or irregular shapes. Images of galaxies can be truly breathtaking and mysterious, and will easily inspire children when making their own version. They’ll be painting, sponging, splattering, and using a glass bead textured gel medium to create a cool effect. 

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Filed under Acrylic Mediums, painting, space

Embedded

Many of us return from our travels with a few mementos and trinkets tucked into the corners of our luggage. They’re great to use in holiday themed scrapbooks and travel collages, but they’re also perfect for painting like Jackson Pollock. In his 1947 oil painting, Full Fathom Five, paint is thickly layered and drizzled in classic Pollock ‘drip’ style. Put your specs on, however, and you’ll notice a variety of objects embedded in the paint including nails, buttons, coins, and even cigarette butts. It’s a very cool way to immortalize your trip and display your memories. If you happen to be in Toronto, you can view this painting at the AGO until September 4th. After that, you’ll have to head to its home in New York.

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Filed under assemblage, Jackson Pollock, mixed media, painting

Suranimals

It’s spring, and little creatures are just about everywhere you look, hiding under piles of leaves, and resting under rocks and trees. Insects alone outnumber us, with an estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 quintillion) of them worldwide, making them the most successful life form on the planet. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than by coming up with a few imaginary ones of our own, inspired by the work of artist Jerome Couëlle .

Couëlle is a french born artist, who lives in both Toronto and Vermont. He uses the word suranimals to describe the wonderfully imaginative creatures that inhabit his surreal paintings. You’ll find fish strolling about on legs, smiling holstein cats, and multi-coloured insects with hats. I invite you to discover his magical world, which will surely inspire you to create some whimsical creatures of your own.

“My paintings are dedicated to the animals whom I call ‘suranimals’ for they are all knowing, to the children, to the artists, to the poets, the writers, the musicians who refuse to be chained to what used to be, and do not accept the world as their reason has taught them, but have freed their eyes to be the true window to peer into infinity.” Jerome Couëlle

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Filed under Art and Nature, Artists, Jerome Couëlle, painting

The Life Cycle Of An Egg Carton

The egg carton’s primary purpose is to escort eggs from the chicken coop to your home, where it either gets tossed in the recycling bin, or with the help of some ingenious humans, mutates into bug eyes, seed starters, sorting trays, cat beds, flowers, molds, lights, and creatures of all kinds. Finding a second life for an egg carton has never been a problem, but using it as a canvas to paint portraits and patterns on never occurred to me until I came across the work of Enno de Kroon. His “eggcubist” portraits play with the viewer’s perception, looking strangely deformed because of the peaks and valleys of his unorthodox canvas. They’re also very cool and look deceptively easy to paint. I found focussing on vibrant colours, patterns, and simple shapes worked best for children, and proved easier to execute. They’ll love the results.

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Filed under Artists, egg cartons, Enno de Kroon, painting, recycling

Under The Sea

Create a magical sea world with a textured watercolour background, some fish, a few bones and plenty of imagination. About the bones…it’s not that I have a particular fondness for bones, but this is my second project using them, and my daughter is beginning to find it a bit odd. She’s probably wondering where I’m heading with this since I’ve now covered chicken and fish. Quite simply, I’ve always wanted to incorporate fish bits in a project. I may have been inspired by the unique art which graces the walls of Joso’s restaurant and actually includes the odd piece of fish skin, along with a liberal dose of boobs and bottoms. But since they quite possibly make the best fish in Toronto, who am I to say what they should do with the leftovers.

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Paul Klee Project

Insula Dulcamara by Paul Klee, 1938. Image:www.artchive.com

The Swiss/German artist, Paul Klee, was born in 1879 and today would have been his birthday. He was a great admirer of children’s art, primitive art, and deeply influenced by music, which he studied for years. Klee’s work has been associated with many different styles including Expressionism, Surrealism and Abstraction, but he generally liked to work independently, coming up with his own interpretation of trends. This combination of skills and interests, coupled with his mastery of colour and experimentation with different media, made Klee’s work unique.

In this project, we will focus on Klee’s use of geometric forms, symbols and figures applied to dreamlike coloured backgrounds.

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Filed under drawing, Paul Klee