An Artsy Corgi Art Activity Based on Lighthouse Paintings

Ahoy, Matey, let’s make a seascape with a lighthouse and lots of fun details! In this Artsy Corgi art activity, you’ll discover an easy way to draw a lighthouse, learn several fun painting techniques, and finish up with some 3-D effects. We call this type of project a mixed-media activity, because we use several different art mediums.

In this post you’ll find:

• Supply list It looks a little long, but most of it is stuff you may already have
• Step-by-step directions
• Helpful hints
• Variations and/or adaptations for different ages
• Vocabulary and art and design elements and principles children will learn
• 4 ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development
• Clean-up tips
• Cute Molly Photo

Let’s Make a Seascape!

Supplies:

• Sturdy light blue paper for a background (with light blue paper, you can paint clouds and water on an already sky and water colored background)
• White foam plates make great paint palettes and can rinse off easily for reuse or be thrown away
• Tempera paint in white, black, blue, green, and purple
• Clean damp rags to paint with
• White drawing paper for the lighthouse
• Pencils, erasers, scissors
• Colored pencils, crayons, or markers to color the lighthouse
• Tan or white paper to spatter for sand
• Watercolor set and 2 brushes for spattering
• A fork or old plastic card to make sea grass
• Small sea shells (gathered yourself, or available in craft stores)
• White glue

Directions: (I’ve split these into sections for easier use)

Sea and Sky

1. Lightly draw a horizon line to divide the sky and water
2. On the palette, pour a small puddle of white and a very small puddle of black, leaving space between each puddle
3. Scrunch up your rag or hold it over your index finger to paint
4. After looking at clouds outside or in photos, use the rag to paint clouds. They can be fluffy or straight. You may swirl the paint to suggest movement. See the picture at #7.
5. If you wish to add gray to clouds, put a little white in another spot on your palette and mix in a tiny bit of black to make different grays. Always mix just a little of the darker color into the lighter color. The opposite way takes way more of the lighter color to change the darker color.
6. Add blue, green, and purple to your palette.
7. Use these colors or mix together to make the ocean. You may make a calm sea or big swirling waves. Add white to the top of waves for foam.

Sand

1. Sand comes in all colors, so use a sheet of white or tan paper.
2. Swirl a wet brush into the brown pan of a watercolor set.
3. While holding it over the paper, tap the brush against the handle of another brush to spatter paint. Use other colors if you wish—maybe some yellows and even a little green and blue for beach glass.

Lighthouse (The camera has distorted some of the lines)

1. Look at a glass or towel tube and help children draw a cylinder’
2. Look at a picture of a lighthouse and see that it’s a tower, which is a cylinder.
3. Some lighthouses taper towards a narrower top, but they are still cylinders.
4. Encourage children to look at other details, such as the rounded top or roof and the balconies with railings that often go around the outside. Keepers needed to get outside to keep the glass clean. These railings should curve.
5. If children wish they can add some out buildings around the lighthouse tower. Don’t worry about 1-point perspective, unless they’re older and want to learn. There are lots of online tutorials for it if they do.
6. Color the lighthouse and cut out.

Putting it all together

1. Cut out stretches of sand and glue in place over the water.
2. Glue the lighthouse somewhere on top of the sand.
3. Use a fork or old plastic card to make sea grass.
4. Glue on seashells.

And there you have it–a beautiful seascape with a lighthouse.

More Helpful Ideas and Tips for this Activity

Helpful Hints:

• Painting with rags and spattering paint is fun and easy for all ages, but it is messy, so if the weather cooperates, you might want to do these parts outside in one session.
• You may spatter paint with an old tooth brush and a popsicle stick, but remember to scrape towards yourself. It’s a little counterintuitive, but the other way just spatters you!
• Paint shirts are a good idea !
• To help prevent globs of glue, pour a small glue puddle on a plate and have children use their finger to spread the glue.
• Place waxed paper under things as you spread glue. It keeps things from sticking in the wrong places.

Variations and/or adaptations for different ages:

• Paint a sun setting over the horizon
  

  sunset over Higgins Beach, photo by author

• Use gray paper and paint lots of black clouds over a stormy sea
• Use black paper and use thick yellow tempera paint to show the lighthouse’s beam of light
• Draw and cut out small ships to sail out in the ocean
• older children may want to get more detailed with their lighthouse drawings.
• Sometimes children get discouraged if their drawing efforts don’t look just as they’d like. Remind them that drawing is a skill just like playing soccer or making a cake. It takes practice and time. Encourage them to try and praise their efforts!
• Younger children may need help cutting and gluing all the parts together.
• You may need a glue gun to make the shells stick.

4 Vocabulary and art and design principles children will learn

1. Seascape—a painting that has views of the ocean
2. Color: tint=a color plus white, shade=a color plus black—in this activity children learn how to mix tints and shades for the clouds and water. They also learn how to mix just a little darker color at a time into lighter colors.
3. Texture: how something feels to the touch, rough, soft, etc. In painting we often simulate texture by spattering, etc.—as children use this different painting technique and spatter paint, they learn about putting texture into paintings.
4. Perspective: the ways artists create the illusion of depth in a painting, creating a foreground, middle ground, and background—without getting technical, children can discover 2 ways (differences in size and overlapping objects) to create the 3 distances in paintings.

4 Ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development

1. Using pencils, brushes, scissors, etc. helps children develop fine motor skills.
2. This activity helps develop visual/spatial skills as children create a picture with 3 distances.
3. Making choices in creating art enhances problem-solving skills.
4. Making art enhances creativity and refreshes minds and eyes tired from screens.

Clean up Hints:

• Be sure to put a plastic table cloth or large paper under your work
• Have paper towels handy
• A plastic dish tup is great to hold tools you will keep and wash
• Keep a wastebasket handy for trash
• After washing and rinsing brushes, reshape bristles if needed, and lay them flat on paper towels to dry. Store with bristles up in a jar.

Before You Go, See Molly’s Photos and More about Lighthouses

If you’d like more activity ideas for art, history, and nature, curriculum connections, and links to more resources, be sure to sign up for my newsletter and receive a free guide to 5 Ways Art Benefits Children’s Cognitive, Physical, Spiritual, and Social Development, with a Few Fun and Easy Activities for each Benefit. You can also learn more about us and see more fun activities on our website

Photos of Molly the Artsy Corgi with a few ocean things

Molly was a little worried at first

then she decided a shell might be good to eat.

Finally she settled down for a good photo. She knows it means a treat!

Visit my website where you’ll find free downloadable puzzles, how-to-draw pages and coloring pages for kids and an updated list of my hands-on workshops, chapels, and presentations for all ages.  

Molly the Artsy Corgi hopes you enjoy making a mixed media art project of the sea and a lighthouse! If you missed them, be sure and go to earlier posts about lighthouses this month—Shipwrecks and Lighthouses and Lighthouses Tall and Small, A Kid-friendly Devotion about Lighthouses.

Next week in our newsletter you’ll discover connections to other subjects, a museum gem with activities for kids online, freebees, book reviews, and links to continue learning about lighthouses!

Molly and I hope to see you back here soon for a new Kathy the Picture Lady art series.

 

 

 

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Scroll in a Box Art Activity Based on Christ and His Mother Reading the Scriptures by Henry O. Tanner

Let’s make a scroll in a box. This project has endless possibilities to use for school projects and special days and holidays. It will also remind us of our painting, Christ and His Mother Reading the Scriptures, by Henry O. Tanner, because of course, at that time they would be reading from a scroll.

Christ and His Mother Reading the Scriptures by Henry O. Tanner, 1909, Dallas Museum of Art, public domain

In this post you’ll find:

• Supply list
• Step-by-step directions  AND Variations, which are limited only imaginations!
• Helpful hints
• 4 Ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development
• Clean-up tips
• Molly Photo with a special announcement

Let’s get started!

Supplies:

• A box with a lid
• Paper of all kinds
• Glue, scissors, pencils, rulers, crayons, markers, etc
• Craft supplies, such as ribbon, yarn, stickers, shells, etc

Directions AND Variations:

The Scroll

1. Cut a long piece of paper to make a scroll that will fold into the size of your box (if you need to tape or glue several pieces of paper together)
2. Fold this as you would a fan to make sections that fit the box’s length and width (make the paper a little smaller than the box so it folds in smoothly)
3. Do not glue the scroll into the box until you have done any writing or other decoration on the scroll

Here are a few suggestions for ways to use your scroll in a box. I bet you can think of lots more:

• Book reports
• Favorite verses you’ve decorated
• Stories you’ve written
• Facts about an animal you’re studying
• Mother’s Day “card”
• Christmas “card”

The Box Cover

1. Choose how you want to decorate the cover of your box
2. I cut and glued colored paper to cover the original design first

Here are a few suggestions for cover designs:

• Your design may be a pretty paper you once marbled or blew colored bubbles onto
• If this is for a book report, you may draw and color a picture from the book and include its title and your name somewhere on the cover
• If it’s a history project, you might glue on a map showing the area you studied
• For an animal report you could glue or draw a picture of the animal for the cover
• If it’s a story you’ve written about the beach you might glue on some shells and color waves or lighthouses
• Try printing a leaf and then gluing on some more leaves, pinecones, etc.
• If the box is for a special day such as Mother’s day decorate with artificial flowers, etc

When the scroll and the box cover are done, it’s time to glue the scroll into the box and hand in for a terrific grade or give as a special gift to someone in your family or a friend!

Helpful Hints

• If you use thin paper for the scroll, liquid glue will pucker it. Try glue sticks instead
• Some of the 3-D elements may need to be attached with a glue gun (parent oversight of this is recommended)
• Parents or caregivers will need to make the scroll for younger children and glue it into the box. But children will enjoy decorating or writing on the scroll.

4 Ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development

1. Using pencils, brushes, scissors, etc. helps children develop fine motor skills.
2. This project is a wonderful way to encourage children to use their imaginations and creativity
3. Making art refreshes minds and eyes tired from screens.
4. This project gives children new ways to do school projects or to explore their interests and talents as they decide what to put on the scroll.

Clean up Hints:

• Be sure to put a plastic table cloth or large paper under your work
• Have paper towels handy
• Wax paper under things you glue keeps them from sticking in the wrong places
• Keep a wastebasket handy for trash

Special Announcement:

Starting next week and for the whole month of September Molly and I will be interviewing 6 great children’s author’s and the new books they have coming out, including nonfiction, picture books, and board books.

Here’s a picture of Molly with 2 earlier books by Annette Whipple, which I use in my art room all the time.Those eyes have her mesmerized!

Next week Molly and I will tell you all about Annette’s newest book and give you a sneak preview of some of its amazing illustrations!

Before You Go

Molly hopes you enjoy making a scroll in a box! On August 31^st our newsletter will come with curriculum connections, a museum gem, suggestions for related research, children’s books to read, and a freebie or 2! Don’t miss it. Sign up with the button above. And also receive a free guide to 5 Ways Art Benefits Children’s Cognitive, Physical, Spiritual, and Social Development, with a Few Fun and Easy Activities for each Benefit

Visit my website where you’ll find free downloadable puzzles, how-to-draw pages and coloring pages for kids and an updated list of my hands-on workshops, chapels, and presentations for all ages. Add link

 

 

 

 

Children’s Art Activity for Mother’s Day

This month Molly and I are changing things up a bit, so you can make a cute card for Mother’s Day. In the next posts we’ll look at some beautiful paintings about mothers by Mary Cassatt, and next a devotion based on those paintings.

In this post you’ll find:

• Supply list
• Vocabulary
• Step-by-step directions
• 2 Helpful hints
• Variations and/or adaptations for different ages
• An art element and design principle to learn about
• 3 ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development
• Clean-up tips
• Cute Molly Photo

Let’s get started!

Supplies:

• card stock or construction paper
• paint and brushes, markers, crayons, or colored pencils
• scissors, pencils, yarn or string, and glue
• teabags

Vocabulary:

stencil: a paper or other material with shapes or designs cut out so paint, etc. may be applied through the cutout shape onto an underlying surface

 

 

 

 

Directions:

1. Fold paper in half and draw a cup-shape, making sure one side is against the fold
2. While still folded, cut cup out
3. Cut oval shape out of white or contrasting color and glue in place for cup opening
4. Draw and color designs on front of cup. I made stencils for the tulips
5. Have an adult use an X-Acto knife to make a small cut on the inner rim of the cup
6. Thread yarn or string through the cut and attach a heart or other shape (like a teabag string and tag hanging out of a cup)
7. On the inside left of the card glue a piece of paper over the end of the yarn. Decorate and write your Mother’s Day message on this paper
8. On the other side of the opened card, use a glue gun, tape, or staples to attach a teabag

2 Helpful Hints:

• When you’re making stencils, it’s helpful to fold the paper so the design is the same on both sides
• When using the X-Acto knife, open up the card and work on a cutting board

Variations and/or adaptations for different ages:

• Use a real teabag string and tag instead of yarn
• Make a pocket for the teabag
• This card can be used for many occasions, such as birthdays. Just change designs and inner message.

Children may need help drawing and cutting out the cup and finishing it with a teabag and teabag tag, but there’s much they can do:

•    Choose the color of the card, decorate it, and choose the flavor of tea to include
•    Write the message
•    Pray for the person
•    Stick stamp and return address on envelope and put in letter box

An art element and design principle to learn about

• Color—children will choose colors to make a pleasing design
• Shape—learning to notice and work with shapes is an important skill that helps children in many ways, such as letter recognition and math skills.

3 Ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development

1. Using crayons and scissors, and other art tools helps children develop fine motor skills.
2. When children make choices in creating art, it enhances problem-solving skills.
3. Making art for someone else encourages children to think of and care for others

Clean up Hints:

• Put a plastic table cloth or large paper under your work
• Wax paper under paper as you spread glue, keeps things from sticking in the wrong places
• Have paper towels handy
• Keep a wastebasket handy
• After washing and rinsing brushes, reshape bristles if needed, and lay them flat on paper towels to dry. Store with bristles up in a jar.

Cute Molly Photo

Molly loves when daffodils and tulips begin to pop up in the spring!

Molly hopes you enjoy making this Mother’s Day card! In our next post we’ll show you two of Mary Cassatt’s beautiful paintings of mothers and children and give you ways to enjoy these with your children.

 

Before You Go

If you’d like more activity ideas for art, history, and nature, curriculum connections, and links to more resources, be sure to sign up for my newsletter and receive a free guide to 5 Ways Art Benefits Children’s Cognitive, Physical, Spiritual, and Social Development, with a Few Fun and Easy Activities for each Benefit

Sign up now and don’t miss May’s newsletter, which will have lots of books and activities to help you and your kiddos enjoy God’s wonderful creation!

You may also visit my website where you’ll find free downloadable puzzles, how-to-draw pages, coloring pages for kids, and an updated list of my hands-on workshops, chapels, and presentations for all ages.

 

 

 

Children’s Art Project Based on John Audubon’s Birds of America

Recently my 3^rd grade art class studied owls for an art project. They learned that big owl eyes see really well at night, that owl feathers help them fly silently, and that extra-long owl necks help them rotate their heads as much as 270 degrees. We saw that an owl’s head is much rounder than many birds.

They learned these things because we looked carefully to first draw and then make an owl collage. The more they looked and learned, the more they saw God’s wonderful design and diversity! You and your children will love making owl collages, too.

Here’s what you’ll find in this post:

• Supply list
• Vocabulary
• Directions
• Helpful hints
• 4 Variations and/or adaptations for different ages
• 3 Art elements and design principles children will learn
• 4 Ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development
• Clean-up tips
• An update about the Cliff Swallows of San Juan Capistrano
• Cute Molly Photo

Let’s get started!

Supplies:

• Construction paper in blacks, tans, browns, yellows, and whites
• Black, white, and brown tempera paint (no brown paint? Just mix blue, yellow, and red as I did to make brown. More blue makes a darker brown)
• Brushes, forks
• Yellow or white colored pencil
• Crayons
• White glue
• Pencils, scissors

Vocabulary:

Texture, how an object feels to the touch, such as its roughness, smoothness, fuzziness, etc.  In painting we often try to give an impression of texture with thick paint or with different kinds of marks.

Directions:

Feathers

1. On a light-colored paper, blend whites and blacks to cover the paper. Try to get a variety of dark and light grays. For texture, don’t blend these too much on the paper. You may also dip a brush or fork in the pure black or white and add a variety of marks for more texture.
2. Do the same with brown and white paint on another paper.
3. Allow these to dry

Tree

1. For the tree trunk, cut a piece of brown paper that will stretch from top to bottom of the black paper and add texture to it with crayons. When done coloring, roll the paper as if making a tube and gently crush it together all along its length.
2. Open up the tube and glue to the side of the black paper as the tree trunk.
3. For a branch, color and cut a thin strip of brown paper. See below for when to add the branch.

Owl

1. On a black paper, use the yellow colored pencil to sketch an owl sitting on the branch of a tree. Notice the owl’s head is quite round, while a fat leaf shape can be used for the body.
2. Draw and cut out eyes, beak, and talons.
3. Tear the brown and gray papers into feathers. They’ll look more natural if torn.
4. Starting at the bottom of the owl and working up, glue the feathers to cover the owls’ body and head, overlapping these and only gluing the top portion of each feather so they look 3-D.
5. When you get to where you want a branch, glue it down and glue more feathers and the talons on top of it.
6. After you have the head feathered, (I didn’t add those feathers, but put the disks where they’d do over the head feathers), you may want to cut circles from one of the painted papers and fringe these around the edges. These facial disks of feathers surround the eyes of many owls and help reflect light to the eyes. Glue the eyes in the center of the facial disks and glue these to the head along with the beak.

Moon

1. Cut out a moon from a paper towel and glue in place. Use quite a bit of glue and as it dries, it’ll begin to show the black paper through it, looking quite moon-like. (credit for this idea goes to a third grader!)

Display these owl collages where everyone can enjoy the uniqueness of each creation!

Helpful Hints:

This project needs white glue, and many children have a hard time not getting great globs of it everywhere. To prevent this, I squeeze a puddle of glue onto a plastic or aluminum pie plate, and children use their fingers or a Q-tip to spread the glue where needed. It also helps them be able to just dip one end of each feather in the glue.

4 Variations and/or adaptations for different ages:

1. I did this project with a large group of 3^rd graders, with demonstrations for each step, and they did really well. Younger children will need you to break it down into small steps, but in small groups may still do this project successfully. (remember that you want them to enjoy the process, not come up with an adult style artwork). Let the personality of each owl shine through!
2. This project can be done without paint. Have children use crayons to add texture to gray and tan papers and use these for the feathers.
3. Make a larger tree trunk and cut a hole in it for the owl to be in.
4. Older children can research owls and use colors that make their owl look more like a particular kind.

3 Art elements and design principles children will learn

1. This project helps children see and draw shapes.
2. It helps children learn to mix lighter and darker colors and blend these on paper.
3. It also teaches them a few ways we make textures in paintings.

4 Ways this activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development

1. Using crayons, paint brushes, and other art tools helps children develop fine motor skills.
2. Looking at an object or creature before and during drawing helps children develop better observation skills.
3. Discussing their art as they work builds vocabulary and social skills.
4. Making art enhances creativity and refreshes minds and eyes tired from screens.

Clean up Hints:

• Be sure to put a plastic table cloth or large paper under your work
• Have paper towels handy
• Wax paper under papers as you add glue keeps things from sticking in the wrong places.
• Keep a wastebasket handy for trash
• After washing and rinsing brushes, reshape bristles if needed, and lay them flat on paper towels to dry. Store with bristles up in a jar.

Update on the Swallows of San Juan Capistrano

Mission San Juan Capistrano, CA, author photo

With the help of Dr. Brown, the mission began playing recorded swallow songs about the time the swallows return each March. They constructed a wall just for the swallows to build their nests on, along with a nearby pool so the birds could make mud pellets for their nests.

These efforts have helped bring back a few nesting pairs in the last few years, but the bigger problem is the loss of habitat around the mission. The growth in people population and in tree planting has cut way down on the open fields swallows need to find food, so the project is an ongoing challenge.

Cute Molly Photo

Along with many of us, Molly celebrated St. Patrick’s Day this week. She hopes you like her green bandana! She thought the green frog added a nice touch, too.

She wants you to know that next week our newsletter will have lots of fun ideas, projects, freebees, book reviews, and links to continue learning, It includes a review of the wonderful book about owls that fascinated my 3rd graders. It’s full of facts and photos!

Before You Go

If you’d like more activity ideas for art, history, and nature, curriculum connections, and links to more resources, be sure to sign up for my newsletter and receive a free guide to 5 Ways Art Benefits Children’s Cognitive, Physical, Spiritual, and Social Development, with a Few Fun and Easy Activities for each Benefit.

Visit my website where you’ll find free downloadable puzzles, how-to-draw pages and coloring pages for kids and an updated list of my hands-on workshops, chapels, and presentations for all ages.

Molly and I hope to see you back here soon for a new Kathy the Picture Lady art series.

 

 

 

Sailing Over the Bounding Waves, A Fun and Easy Art Activity for Creative Kids

Sailboats skimming over a lake or breezing through ocean waves are colorful parts of summer. In this art activity you’ll make a mixed media, 3-D project with waves and boats that look like you could sail away in to catch the cool summer breezes!

In this post you’ll find:

• Supply list
• Step-by-step directions
• Helpful hints
• Clean-up tips
• Adaptations for various ages
• Variations to extend the activity or make it more challenging
• 6 ways the activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development
• A short kid-friendly devotion
• AND as always pictures of Molly, the Artsy Corgi!

Supply list:

• Sturdy white paper for the waves and for the background paper
• Tempera paint for the waves—blue, green, and purple
• Watercolor paints for the sky on the background paper
• Large brushes
• Colored paper or cardstock for the sailboats
• White glue—glue sticks aren’t strong enough for this project
• Scissors

Step-by-step directions:

I’ve divided the directions for this mixed-media activity into 4 parts to make it easier to understand, and because each part needs some drying time. Each part only takes 15 to 20 minutes depending on individuals. Each section takes more time to explain than to do!!

Part A: Creating the ocean waves

1. Put largish puddles of blue, green, and purple tempera paint on a paper plate or a plastic tray. Don’t worry if they get mixed.
2. With a large, flat brush paint these colors across the paper from one side to the other.
3. Don’t try to fill in every little space.
4. Don’t clean the brush between colors.
5. Do mix colors together on the paper as you add new ones.
6. Have fun and paint in a slappy,dappy manner, letting your brush stokes show.
7. Set aside to dry. When dry you may need to flatten it under some books.
8. When the tempera paint is completely dry, slowly tear across the painting to create jagged strips of ocean waves.
9. Don’t tear quickly, make zig zag dips and points like waves.
10. Don’t cut these—tearing creates the white edges that look like foam on breaking waves.

Part B: Creating the sky

1. Mix up largish puddles of water color paints in whatever sky colors you’d like. I chose a couple blues and a yellow.
2. With clean water and a large brush, wet your background paper. Don’t soak it—just give it a light sheen.
3. Paint and drop in your sky colors in various places and allow these to mix freely. Move the paper around to let the colors flow into each other.
4. Don’t worry about leaving some white–these can be cloudy areas.
5. Set aside to dry.
6. When dry you may need to flatten it under some books.

Part C: Create the sailboats while the waves and sky dry

1. Cut and glue together sailboats of various sizes out of colored paper (look at the pictures for ideas)  Cardstock paper is stiffer and will stand up better, but you can use a double layer of colored paper.
2. Set aside to dry.

Part D: Putting it all together

1. Choose where the ocean will meet the sky and lay a strip of ocean waves across the sky background. Have the white edge of the strip uppermost.
2. Do not glue yet.
3. Overlap more strips of waves across each other until you reach the bottom of the background paper. Work with these until you have a number of layers of waves and colors, always keeping the torn white edge showing.
4. To begin gluing, pick up just the bottom strip and put a line of glue along its bottom edge. Then place it down so its edges are even with the bottom edge of the background paper.
5. Pick up the next strip, add a line of glue along its bottom edge, and tuck it under the strip you just glued.
6. Repeat this with each strip until you reach the point where you want the sky to show.
7. By not gluing down the tops of the waves, you now have waves that stand out and look more real.
8. Decide where you want the boats to be and put just a line of glue along the hull. Then tuck the boat down into the waves.

Ahoy there, matey! Now you can enjoy your easy, breezy ocean picture to send to a friend or put up on the fridge!!

Helpful Hints:

• It takes quite a bit of tempera paint for the wild ocean wave paper.
• When you mix your watercolors for the sky, start with a puddle of clean water for each color and add enough pigment to make your colors bright. Remember that watercolors fade as they dry, and when mixed wet-in-wet, they get diluted even more.
• You may want to tilt the boats so they look like they’re riding the waves.
• To give your picture a sense of depth, put larger boats up closer than smaller boats.
• Try curling the flags around a pencil first so they look like they’re flapping in the wind.

Clean up Tips:

• Use an old plastic table cloth under your work.
• Use wax paper under the tempera wave painting and your watercolor background. That way you can paint right over the edges on both sides and not worry about cleanup.
• Use wax paper under the sailboats as you assemble them with glue. They’ll peel right off.
• Have a plastic dish tub handy for all paper trash.
• If using plastic containers for paint, use the brushes to clean these under running water. The containers get clean, and your brushes may only need a little more cleaning.
• But brushes that have had tempera paint need soap and water. Put a little liquid soap in your palm and swirl the brush around. You’ll be amazed how much more paint comes out. Rinse well and dry flat.

Adaptations for various ages

• Once the papers and paints are prepared for the waves and the sky, little ones should only need a little demonstration to be able to enjoy doing these 2 parts.
• Little ones will need more help tearing the waves, making the boats, and assembling the scene, but use your judgement about your children. And remember to let them create as much as possible. It doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.

Variations to extend the activity or make it more challenging

• Instead of watercolor, use blue paper for the background and cut out paper clouds or dab clouds on with white paint and cotton balls.
• Instead of blues for the sky, use blacks (these will be gray to black, depending on how much water is added) to make a stormy sky. Add lightning zigzags with yellow tempera paint or marker when the water color is dry.
• Make different kinds of boats, such as cruise ships, navy ships, tugboats, etc.
• Go online and find directions to make origami sailboats.
• Follow this link to Winslow Homer’s famous painting, Breezing Up, a painting of ocean waves and sailboats and enjoy together.  https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.30228.html

6 ways the activity aids children’s mental, physical, and social development

1. Using paint brushes and scissors helps children develop fine motor skills.
2. Discussing their own art and/or the painting, Breezing Up, builds vocabulary and social skills.
3. Discussing zig zag lines and places you may see these (as in the letters A, K, M, N, R, V, W, Y, and Z) will help young children become more observant of small differences—helpful in learning letters and in reading.
4. This art activity also helps children develop visual/spatial skills, which is important in learning to interpret photos, graphs, maps, etc.
5. When children make choices in creating art, it enhances problem-solving skills.
6. Creating art enhances creativity and refreshes minds and eyes from all those screens.

A short kid-friendly devotion about when Jesus calmed the storm:

Jesus and His disciples were in a fishing boat when a big storm came up.

Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. the disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord save us! We’re going to drown!” (Matthew 8: 24-25 NIV)

Then he [Jesus] got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm (Matthew 8:26 NIV).

1. Have you ever been in a boat and felt it rocking on the waves? Did you feel a little afraid?
2. But we don’t have to be in a boat in a storm to feel afraid. What are some things that make you afraid?
3. When Jesus awoke, He spoke to the wind and the waves, and they became completely calm right away! Jesus was with the disciples, AND He was completely in control of the storm!
4. God is in control of everything! He holds the sea and the mountains in the palm of His hand (Isaiah 40:12). He is mightier than the waves of the sea! (Psalm 89:9)
5. When we’re afraid and call out to Jesus as the disciples did, we can trust that He is always with us to calm our fears and that He is in control of what’s happening. Memorizing this verse may help you remember God loves you, is with you, and He is always in control:

One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving. Psalm 62:11-12a

These verses may be helpful, too:

• Psalm 139:9-10
• Joshua 1:9
• Psalm 4:8
• Psalm 23:4
• Psalm 62:1-2
• Hebrews 13:6

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, that we can always run to You when we’re afraid. We praise You that nothing is outside Your control, and we know You’ll understand and help us, because You love us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Molly, the Artsy Corgi

In this activity we made zig zag lines for the waves. In our last art activity we made lots of circles, and Molly decided to get in on the fun! Here she is sitting in the middle of a hula hoop after some lessons on jumping through it!

And here she is all tired out from jumping through the hoop.

But You don’t have to jump through hoops and get all tired out to have even more summer fun!!  Sign up to receive these posts by email.

AND If you’d like more activity ideas for art, history, and nature, curriculum connections, and links to more resources, be sure to click the button to sign up for my newsletter, and receive a free guide to making art museum visits a fun masterpiece for your whole family! Sign up now and you’ll be all set to receive my summer newsletter, with lots of ideas for summer fun–inside and outside!

Visit my all-new website to get free downloadable puzzles, how-to-draw pages and coloring pages for kids and see an updated list of my hands-on workshops, chapels, and presentations for all ages. http://www.kathy-oneill.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warm and Cool Color Blends, A Fun and Easy Art Project for Creative Kids

This week we’ll take making tints of the same color one step further to make warm and cool color blends. It’s lots of fun to mix a couple colors and see how many different blends you can get.

I’ve added 2 new sections at the end of this lesson to help you extend art learning into other areas. Be sure to look at:

• How this art lesson can help your children in other areas of learning:
• How this art lesson can help point your children to God:

I’ll also show you how you can adapt this project for older and younger children. So let’s have some fun making art!

Supplies:

• White construction paper, larger sheets for backgrounds as well as scraps
• Pencils, scissors, crayons
• Tempera paints
• Various sizes of brushes, Q tips
  
• glue or tape

Directions for the Warm Fish:

Older children

1.      Draw a fish or 2 on paper scraps
2.      Draw interior designs on the fish. If you wish, outline lines in crayon to help paint stay in spaces.
   
3.      Gradually mix yellow and red, paint the fish with these blends. I painted one fish in blends from yellow at its nose through oranges to red at its tail. On the other fish I just spaced the different blends around the fish.
4.      Let dry and flatten, then cut out your fish

Younger children

1.      Allow them to enjoy mixing warm blends and painting these on a paper
2.      Let dry and draw a fish on these later to cut out

 

Directions for Cool Water:

Older children

1.      Draw wavy lines to make spaces on your larger background paper
2.      Mix blues and greens and purples to paint inside these spaces. Space your blends around the paper to create a pleasing pattern of lights and darks.   (If you paint around the edges of a space first, you can fill it in quickly and more smoothly)
   
3.      Let dry and flatten
   

Younger children

1.      Allow children to enjoy mixing blends of cool colors and painting these all over the background paper

Assembling:

1. Glue or tape your warm fish to the cool background and enjoy the resulting contrast!!
2. Add some bubbles with white paint and Q tips if you wish

How this art lesson can help your children in other areas of learning:

1. For many children mixing the paints to see how many different blends they can get is as much fun as the actual painting!! Mixing paint and discovering these fosters better observation skills! Have lots of scrap paper and paper towels, and enjoy the process!!
2. Using the tools of art such as paint brushes and pencils and scissors helps develop fine motor skills.
3. Cutting with scissors is often an especially hard skill for children to master, but so helpful for when they go to school. If your child is really struggling with this skill, try the loop scissors pictured here. One pair works for either right-handed or left-handed children and they are available in blunt or sharp points. In my art room, they’re a favorite with all my students, younger and older!!

 

How this art lesson can help point your children to God:

1. On walks or in your yard, have children find all the different greens, from light yellow greens of new leaves and grass to darker bluish greens of pines and older leaves!
2. Get up close with flowers and see how God often blends darker colors and lighter colors on the flower.
3. Look at how colors change from sunlight to shade.
4. Look up at the sky and see how the blues change from day to day, depending on clouds and time of day.
5. Look closely at a pond or lake or the ocean and name all the colors you see.
6. Pause and thank God for providing such a colorful world for us to enjoy!

Molly and I hope you have fun mixing paint and observing all the color variations God has created out in nature!

Be sure to come back next week for another Fun and Easy Art Project for Creative Kids!