Pepper Paints

Our Holton Rower Tall Paintings aka Pour Paintings

It’s been a long time since I last posted! To say I have been busy is an understatement! Less than two months ago, several members of our local unschooling group met at a local coffee shop to talk about starting an unschoolers co-op and today we held our first day of classes with about 25 families and 60 kids! We have 4 sessions in which we offer several different classes. Some classes are taught by outside teachers and many led by parents. Several of us have really worked hard to get this up and running so quickly…it is sort of  unbelievable that we made it happen…and happen so well I might add!

I am teaching 2 sessions of art. My head is so full of possible ideas it might just pop off and my kids are so glad I have a new audience to share all these ideas with! (Although both of them chose to take my class!)

Today we talked about artist, Holton Rower. You may have seen his YouTube video of his TALL PAINTINGS that has been all over the internet lately. I loved it so much and thought it was a perfect project for a first class discussion about process vs product. My husband I built a smaller version of Rower’s pedestals using a piece of 4 inch 2×2 on its end screwed on to a 4inch  2×4 on it’s side and finally screwing those to a 12 x 12 piece of plywood.

Rower uses acrylic paint and there was no way I could afford to buy that much acrylic paint. Then I realized that latex house paint is acrylic paint! Perfect!! We visited a few Habitat for Humanity re-stores and Home Depot’s for some cheap paint before remembering we have a friend with a painting business and TONS of extra paint. Perfect again!!

We looked at a few prints of Rower’s Pour Paintings and I let the kids try to guess how he put the paint down.

Then we watched the video and talked about product vs process.

Luckily I had tons of helpers today! This project was A LOT of set up! First I covered everything with tarps and cardboard. We poured small amounts of paint into dixie cups and let the kids pick their colors.

And the pouring began!

Each of my students made 2 pour paintings and luckily we were able to leave them undisturbed until next week. Hopefully they will dry by then!

I am so happy with the way this project turned out! The kids loved making them too! I would love to try this on a larger scale someday. I certainly have enough left over paint!!

Salad Spinner Art

A few weeks ago when visiting my in-laws, we practiced our customary scavenging of their “to-go” pile. Among the great old wooden crates and mason jars we took, there was a salad spinner. I snatched it up telling my mother and father in law my plans to squirt paint inside for some home made spin art–they were tickled!

I watered down some tempra paint and cut some paper circles to fit the bottom of the spinner.

Oooh Ahhhhh! I bet if you didn’t have a second salad spinner the paint would probably wash out…but please don’t blame me if you try it and it ruins your salad spinner!!  Maybe look for one second hand for spin art purposes only!

DIY Lunch Bags And Gift Bags

I bought white lunch bags from one of my favorite local gems, Cake Craft. Cake Craft is a bakers oasis. Every type of candy mold, cake decor, boxes etc you can imagine.And all the sprinkles oooh!!

We used liquid water colors to paint our gift bags. I barely diluted the water colors keeping them as bright as possible. Open the bags up to keep the paint from bleeding through.

We let the colors run together on some and painted designs on others.

Take care not to tear them when they are wet. Once they dry they are ready to be filled with a gift or a lunch!

Look at the pretty bags at Artsyville! Actually look at all the pretty things there!!

Poinsettia Sponge Prints

First I set out a little inspiration!

I cut up some sponges into long petal shapes and shorter ones into leaf shapes. Squirted a little tempra paint onto a tray. Squirted a little more tempra onto a dish with some q-tips  and voila…..

The kids got down to business!

And made many , many beautiful poinsettia sponge prints!

Thanks to Deep Space Sparkle for the idea! I especially love her blue ones!

Painting Photos

I saw the most awesome idea over at Eclectic Chica last week! I couldn’t wait to paint some of our own photos.

I went through some of our photos and printed out a few in black and white and put out some tempra paint and different size brushes.

This was a really fun. The girls spent a long time painting their photos.

I put the extra black and white print outs on the art table with crayons and markers for later. Such a simple idea–I love it!!

Salt And Watercolors

I first saw this idea at Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning.  I LOVE this blog and get so many great ideas from them!!

First we drew a picture or design with a glue stick on some paper. Then we covered it with salt and shook off any excess.

Next we used eye droppers or pipettes to drip some color over the salt. We used liquid watercolors but I am sure food coloring would work too.

It was so exciting to see the salt absorb the colors.

We loved making these. A project I am sure we will be doing again really soon.

Pine Cone Swag

I saw this idea in Family Fun this month. They used acrylic paint to paint their pine cones–we used tempra.

The rest went into a basket.