Pepper Paints

Puzzle Upcycle

When sorting through our puzzle drawer I found a few puzzles my kids have outgrown. I remembered seeing a puzzle diy on alisaburke’s blog

First Ginger painted the whole puzzle

Be sure to spread paint out the paint so there are no globs and it’s not too thick. Then we removed all the pieces to dry.

Draw your pattern, design, picture or whatever you decide with pencil if you are like me or you can go straight to the sharpie if you are bold and brave!

After you outline your work in sharpie you can start painting.

After everything is dry — give this fancy new puzzle to a friend!!

Hand Dyed Tiles

I have been ooohing and aaahhing over Artsyvilles  drunken tiles for a while now. We finally bought some alcohol based inks (adirondack inks) and some 10 cent tiles from Lowe’s and went to town!

We started with  the alocohol blending solution squirted onto the tiles and spread it  around with a toothbrush.

Then we gently dripped small amounts of the colored dyes on to the tiles. As long as the alcohol is wet the dye spreads and runs.

We used straws to blow around some of the colors and q-tips to draw into the colors. If  you add alcohol on top of the dyes it takes the color away.

This was so fun. No two tiles turned out alike. We also learned that you can’t really control the outcome. You think you have it just the way you want it to look and then the dyes just keep spreading and combining into something else. But they all looked really great!

This is the same tile from the first photo–look how it changed.

These dyes are permanent and will stain so prepare accordingly!

Making Day of the Dead Masks

Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday to celebrate the dead.

While I was away on vacation another Mom lead our art class at Co op. I left her with printed pictures of sugar skulls and masks created for the holiday to share with the kids. They used acrylic paints to paint the blank masks I bought at Michaels. Then used a hot glue gun to attach fake flowers and ribbons. They came out really great!!

DIY Puffy Paint

I had a few people ask about the homemade puffy paint recipe that I made for the Paint Like Dale Chihuly post.

Puffy Paint is super expensive to purchase–especially for a whole class. This DIY version is not meant for fabric but more for a paint that dries bumpy. It adds a little depth and texture to the work.

It’s cheap and easy to make. Equal parts salt, flour and hot water. Stir until dissolved. Add liquid or powder tempra. This potion is very forgiving. Add more water if too thick and add more salt and flour if it’s too thin –especially after adding the liquid tempra.

Pour or spoon mixture into squeeze bottles–I bought empty ketchup and mustard bottles. You want the consistency to be runny enough to squeeze out of the bottles with out splatting. Understand? You will once you start mixing. Think frosting–creamy frosting! You can even add a little glitter for some fabulous sparkle!

Subtractive Sculpture in Plaster of Paris

Have you ever tried to make something out of a block of plaster of paris? Carve and chip away to make an abstract or realistic piece of art? It’s hard. I have a new appreciation for sculptures who do this type of subtractive art work. The kids in my classes along with myself all agreed that additive sculptures where much easier!

Over the weekend my very nice, helpful and generous husband mixed up several buckets of plaster of paris and poured it into empty milk cartons. We let these dry or “cure” for a couple of days.

Most of the instructions I found for this included adding vermiculite to the plaster of paris to make the carving process easier but because of the health concerns over breathing in the vermiculite we decided to leave it out. You can also add sand or dirt but I was already way over budget and could not purchase another thing so straight plaster of paris it was.

I brought lots of different tools to class and we were lucky the weather allowed us to do this messy-dusty project outside. We looked at works of art of Barbara Hepworth, George Segal, Jean Arp and The Nana’s. We talked about abstract art vs realistic sculptures.

And then we got to work:

Hammers and mallets were pounding, flat head screw drivers were poking and lots of plaster was flying around. The kids really enjoyed this physical process but were definitely challenged by the material.

Once kids were happy with there work they sanded their sculpture and used tempra cakes to paint their pieces. The paint dried almost immediately on most pieces.

And I love the consideration of all sides and angles on this piece!

This was the final week of this session of our unschooler’s co op. I absolutely loved leading these classes. I learned so much along with the kids. Looking forward to doing it again!

Additive Sculpture

Our unschooling co op is moving right along. Hard to believe we only have one more week of the session. This week during art class we looked at the works of Louise Nevelson and tried our hand at our own additive sculptures.

We used hot glue guns to build our pieces with various odds and ends and bits and pieces.

Next kids chose a color to paint their sculptures.

Next week subtractive sculpture.

Our Alebrijes

We talked about The Linares Family of Mexico and their spectacular art of paper mache. Here is a link chock full of information and links to some of their works.               http://www.driftwood-dreams.co.uk/learn_papier_mache/history.htm

The Linares Family is well known for the mythical like beasts they create known as alebrijes. Popular artists like the Linares are known as cartoneros.  Most cartoneros make fanciful paper mache objects for major celebrations during the year, most notable Day of the Dead and Easter week.  I didn’t know this when I planned out six weeks worth of our Unschooling Co-op art lessons but it ended up perfect timing that we made these the week before Easter!  After looking at some of Felipe Linares Mendoza’s work we created our own little beasts out of foil, covered in newspaper and masking tape.

They were then covered in strips of newspaper moistened in a slightly watered down glue mixture.

We left them to dry until the following week when we painted them. We talked about the style of painting and the patterns used by the Mexican artists and the kids were encouraged to paint their alebrijes in the style of the cartoneros work we looked at.

I LOVE them!! They turned out great!! I would really like to try out more paper mache activities.