Car Art Class Drawing Project

Hey, everyone! I am super excited to share a new art project I tried towards the end of the semester in honor of Father's Day for parents or art teachers who may be interested in having their children do this project. I found that my students really enjoyed it, and they did an amazing job. I am so proud of their hard, beautiful work! I only have photos of some of the artworks, but I was really impressed. These were made by my kindergarten-fourth graders. 

I used a car calendar from the dollar store and had them vote on a class favorite. The calendar had vintage and sports cars. I gave them two options: they could design their own car with no help (maybe even their Dad's or his favorite kind), or they could follow along with a step-by-step I did on the board. I don't usually do step-by-step art tutorials because I like their artwork to be creative and original, but those who did follow along colored their cars different colors and designed them how they wanted. Plus, this tutorial helped them break a detailed image into shapes and lines, as well as showed how to draw something three-dimensional. The backgrounds were made in advance by marbling the paper in shaving cream and food dyes. Terms I taught during this project were warm versus cool colors and proportion.  

I hope to share more art projects soon. I hope this art project/Father's Day gift idea useful! 

-Lauryn 

Easy, Last-Minute, DIY Custom Superhero Costume

 Good evening! Here's a super quick and easy project you may find useful this holiday season, especially if you find yourself in a time crunch and know a small superhero who'd love a special, personalized superhero costume. Mine used red and yellow with lightning strikes because my friend Morgan loved the Flash and Lightning McQueen, though of course I put his initial instead. Here is a basic outline on how to create your own.

You will need:

-Fabric (my red fabric was from the Walmart $2 section and was so great, I did not even need to hem the bottom after cutting it. I used a couple sheets of felt for the other colors/parts.)

-Hot Glue and a Hot Glue Gun

-Velcro

I cut a scalloped edge on the bottom of my rectangular cape with basic scissors. I sewed the top side to a long strip of yellow felt (also a rectangle with curved sides where I planned them to buckle under the chin). I hot-glued on Velcro to the ends of the yellow felt. I cut a gray circle and yellow 'M' out for my logo and hot-glued those to the cape. I cut out my mask shape, rectangle strips and lighting strikes, hot-glued them all together, and glued Velcro to the ends of the rectangle strips for my mask. 

That's all there is to it! I hope somebody finds this useful as a fun, personal gift idea! 

-Lauryn

DIY "Fun in the Sun" Gift Basket

 

Hey, everyone! I am sorry that I have not posted in forever, I am so behind and I have so much to share. I hopefully will be able to post weekly as I did before, maybe even more, but I am not sure. Today I would like to share a summer gift basket I call the "Fun in the Sun" Gift Basket. I created this as a family gift that hopefully children will love, along with refreshments for the family. 

To create this, you will need:

-Lemonade Packets (I used True Lemon packets, which my family uses all the time. They have dye-free, caffeine-free, sugar free products, so I'd say this is a pretty safe choice.)

-Fresh Lemons

-A Jar (to put the lemon supplies into.)

-Sidewalk Chalk

-Glow-Sticks (or other Glow-in-the-Dark alternatives.)

-A Book

-A Basket (of course!)

-Yellow Tissue Paper

-Optional: A Card/Letter

To create this basket, I am not going to break the process down into steps because as you can tell, this is pretty straight forward. Simply put the lemonade supplies into the jar, and the lemons that don't fit can go in the basket. You can create a jar label by cutting brown card-stock or an alternative paper into a circle to fit the Mason Jar lid, writing "Lemonade in a Jar" on it with a black pen, unscrewing the lid to put the paper inside, and then twisting the lid back on. Fill the basket with the yellow tissue paper, and try to spread the paper out and fluff the paper up as much as possible. Place the book against the back of the basket. I used a book I published called "Meet Balance". I need to edit a few things, I found, so I unpublished the book temporarily, but you can find "Meet Texture" here. Both are part of a series I am writing called "Meet the Elements and Principles of Design". Next, tuck in your glow-stick package and jar, a card or letter if you decided to add such, and lastly the sidewalk chalk and extra lemon(s). You may need to rearrange depending on how your supplies look, but the idea is tallest items in the back, smallest in the front, and do your best to make sure everything can be seen. I hope you enjoyed creating this fun, simple summer gift! 

Thank you for visiting! I have lots of events and craft tutorials I hope to share with you soon!

-Lauryn

Artistic Developmentally-Apropriate Valentines for Kids to Make (Tutorial)

Happy belated Valentine's Day! I am sorry this is late and not very useful for 2020. I nearly wrote this whole post yesterday, but I just couldn't upload the photos and finish it in time. I hope everyone had a great Valentine's. Here are some Valentine cards made by my friends that, according to my training thus far in art education, are appropriate for the preschool and kindergarten to early elementary school artistic stages of development.

I'll begin with preschool. My friend Morgan, who is three, loves trains, so that was his theme. If you want a young child (or anyone, actually) to  make valentines, they need intinsic motivation, so go with the theme the child chooses so long as it is appropriate. They may need some prompting. At the preschool ages, children need to experiment freely with a wide variety of media. They should not copy tutorials or simply color in coloring pictures (that is a whole discussion for another time), but should get a feel for various media and techniques while expressing themselves with as few limits as possible. For our valentines, Morgan cut out and tore paper, glued collages, used recycled cardboard (that was safe to use), colored and drew trains with pencils, painted trains with watercolor, and with supervision used perment marker on top of the recycled collages. We even tried to make cardboard hearts with string wrapped around it, but he got bored with that process quickly. In short, we used lots of media and made different kinds of valentines to not only hold his attention and make them fun, but also so he could continue using his imagination, fine motor skills, and grow more proficient at all different media (although he is advanced in artistic development and quite skilled at the media already). Just give your child lots of supplies, and supervise/prompt them as they create. I cut out the cardboard hearts to make the process more efficient (since their attention spans may not be very long at that age). After, write "Happy Valentine's Day", preferrably add a pun to go with the theme, and have the child sign in cursive, which is easier than regular writing. On our heart collages, I wrote "I love you from the bottom of my heart" with the "I love you" literally on the bottom part. I thought it was hilarious, but then again, I am easily amused by puns, especially when a fitting one just pops into mind like that one. I also added train whistles from Dollar Tree to go with them.

My friend Lillie made hers all on her own, but I thought they were great and wanted to share them. If you have a child at the elementary stage or at the point where they love to write, they could cut out hearts (she told me she used one of the cardboard hearts as a template to trace), write a message inside, and then add something such as pencils. If they don't like to write, then they could try one of the activities above or use a new medium. We washi-taped in glowsticks (which was her suggestion). Make sure that the child signs their name, preferrably in cursive since that is much easier to learn, more fun, and looks very pretty.

I hope these quick tips and ideas are helpful! I have some art history inspired valentines to share next! Thanks for visiting!

-Lauryn

DIY Lego Father's Day Gift (That Kids Can Make)

Hello! Here's another gift back from Father's Day using Dollar Tree Lego (which technically aren't Lego but some other brand, but still). I helped one of my (small) close friends make this. She did a fabulous job. This gift is super easy, and it's a great gift for children to create. I found the idea through Pinterest at this website (The Seasoned Mom). I don't have the instructions on my website since this wasn't my idea, but the link has the instructions and it's pretty self-explanatory. You just need a permanent marker, Lego, a jar, and supplies to make a label and/or tag. My label was just brown paper, pen, and tape. My tag was made with brown paper, string to attach it t the jar, and pen. You can stick a bow or label on top, too, if you'd like. The idea is that children write their favorite memories with dad onto the Lego. I hope this comes in handy for somebody when Father's Day comes around again! Actually, this could really work for any occasion. Maybe somebody could use this for Christmas or an upcoming birthday?

I've got lots to share, so visit again soon!
-Lauryn

DIY Mickey Mouse Ears

For Riley's 3rd Modern Minnie Mouse birthday party, I made mickey mouse ears for party favors. Here's the tutorial:

You will need:

-Black felt (One sheet per two people, $0.20 at Walmart per sheet)

-Headbands (I got a pack of twelve headbands for $1 at Dollar Tree)

-Scissors

-Hot glue gun

-Hot glue gun sticks

-Card-stock (black is preferable)

Fold a sheet of felt in half. Cut two circles, which will create four when you are done cutting.

Squirt hot glue on each ear, one at a time.

Place the ear under the headband.

Fold the bottom of the ear (with the hot glue) around the headband, as shown below.

Glue card-stock to every ear to hold them up when they are worn. I used pink cardboard and painted it black because that was what I had on hand.

All done! You can add bows to make Minnie Mouse headbands.

I hope you like your cool party favors!