Child Learners

***Some of the art was done by family members.***

Projects include mobiles, faces, scrap squares, mosaics, batik, a pillowcase, fish, snow, daisy chain, wire sculpture, ladybug magnet, oil pastel resist, snow scene, free people, and patterns.

This is a project from Clare Young's book Mobile Art, which you may be able to borrow through Interlibrary Loan.  Geometric prism patterns can also be found online.

Use scraps of fabric, felt, paper, and beads to make faces. Use a hole punch to make eyes. Use corrugated cardboard from a lightbulb package for additional texture. Use rubber cement when gluing paper to paper, and use Aleene's tacky glue to stick other materials together. 

This is a second project from Clare Young's book Mobile Art, which you may be able to borrow through Interlibrary Loan. 

Here's a detail photo showing  embossing you can make on the copper foil. For tasks like this one, I use a ball point pen which has no ink left in it. You could use a cork-backed 6" stainless steel ruler to make the embossed lines straight, but these were done freehand.

Mount squares of corrugated paper or cardboard on black paper. (Lightbulb boxes are sometimes made of corrugated material, which you can then paint or color with markers.) Add scraps and found items. Aleene's tacky glue works well for this project.

The words for these mosaics were made using air dry clay and "letter stamps" (metal letters that can be attached to the end of a metal post). The birds are made of shrink art film colored with Sharpies.

Usborne has some fabulous books of art projects for children.

For this batik project, blue Elmer's glue is better than white, so it can be seen on the white muslin. No worries about the blue glue: it will be washed out with water at the end, leaving the white muslin in those areas. Here's the lesson plan:

https://www.dickblick.com/lesson-plans/easy-fabric-batik-with-glue/

Part one: Frame the edges of a sheet of bristol board with drafting tape to preserve your border. A child can drizzle rubber cement onto the board. A parent can then brush black ink over the artwork. When the ink is dry, the child can lift off all the tape and then remove the rubber cement using a rubber cement pick-up (pictured above). 

Recess, First Grade; ink on Bristol board.

Part two: Cut a small square from the center of a sheet of paper. Slide the hole of the paper around the artwork created in part one, and choose one area to enlarge on a separate sheet of white Bristol board or black paper. Color the black areas of the Bristol board with marker, or cut them from black paper as I've done here. Glue the pieces to a white square that is slightly bigger than the artwork, and frame it in black.

Glorification (1); Theology Series.

Cut paper on Bristol Board.

Part three: Trace the image from part two on a sheet of tracing paper. Flip it over and use it as a pattern to either paint white or cut from white paper as I've done here. Glue the pieces to a black square that is slightly bigger than the artwork, and frame it in white.

Glorification (2); Theology Series.

Cut paper on Bristol Board.

Paint a water background with watercolor paint. Using a ball-point pen, draw fish on an art metal foil sheet. Put the foil sheet on a stack of newspaper and use the pen to emboss scales on the body and lines on the fins. Turn the metal sheet over, color the fish using Sharpie markers, and cut them out. Glue them to the background. (We use Aleene's Turbo Tacky Glue.)

Research how to fold a sheet of paper when making a snowflake. (See steps 1-6 here: https://www.marthastewart.com/266694/decorating-with-paper-snowflakes). Draw a pattern on your folded paper, cut out your shapes, and unfold your finished snowflake. Tie a piece of clear thread to the snowflake and staple the other end of the thread to the ceiling. Secure the end of the thread on the ceiling with a small piece of scotch tape. Repeat until snowflakes of all shapes and sizes are hanging from various lengths of thread throughout the room.

Remember daisy chains? Here's a video about how to make them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiJzw7GdO1U&ab_channel=BozicArt

Wearing work gloves, an older child can use pliers to make a wire sculpture.

Apply glue to the wire and cover with tissue paper and fabric. "S.S. [Name]" can be written on the hull of the ship.

Cut three pieces of black embroidery floss for legs and a piece of black construction paper for a head. Use a white Gelly Roll pen to make a face. Tie knots at the ends of the floss for feet. Glue them inside a bottle cap to form six feet around the perimeter, and then glue a round magnet over the strands inside the body. Use a small circle hole punch to make 6 circles from masking tape and arrange the circles on the bottle cap. Paint over the tape circles with red paint. When dry, remove the tape circles.

Using a white oil pastel, draw a design on a sheet of paper. Paint over it with watercolor.


Make a snow scene using oil pastels on light blue paper.

Draw four shapes on a rectangular eraser: a head, body, arm, and leg. Ask an adult to cut them out using an X-Acto knife. Use the eraser shapes to print people on brown kraft paper with black acrylic paint. Add a Bible verse if you like. Mount your work on black paper.

Divide a sheet of paper into squares: a few squares for a small child and more for older children. How many different patterns can you make?