Let’s Make an Easter Card with Tulips and 3-D Butterflies

Maria van Oosterwyck loved to paint tulips and butterflies—tulips for spring and butterflies for Christ’s resurrection! So let’s make an Easter card masterpiece with tulips and 3-D butterflies in a Delft pot!

But before you begin your masterpiece, follow this link to my website, where you can sign up for my brand new newsletter and receive a free booklet to help you Make Museum Visits a Masterpiece for Your Family!   http://www.kathy-oneill.com/

Now Let’s get started.

You’ll need these supplies:

• White construction paper
• Cardstock in various colors
• Watercolor paper if you have it, if not, cheap white paper plates will work
• Scrap paper for patterns
• Crayons and markers
• Glue stick or white glue
• Scissors, ruler, pencil
• Watercolor set and brushes
• Wax paper or plastic cloth to protect surfaces from paint and glue

Directions: because there are several steps to making this project, I’ve divided the steps into 7 short sections  (A-G) for clarity.

A. To make beautifully-colored paper for the tulips and butterflies, follow these steps:

1. Make puddles of several colors of paint and water. Use enough water so paint will flow and enough pigment so colors will be bright on the paper.
2. Using a flat brush, wet your watercolor paper or paper plates with clear water. Don’t saturate them, but be sure the surface has a good sheen of water.
3. With brushes or even a spoon, add paint from the puddles to your paper or plate and allow these to swirl together and mix. It’s fun to swirl the paint on the paper or plates, but stop before your colors mix too much.
4. Let dry.
5. Repeat steps 1-3 on the backside of the paper or plate.
6. Set these water-colored papers aside to dry.

 B. To make patterns for butterflies, tulips, and the pot, follow these steps:

1. Cut and fold scrap paper squares of the appropriate size in half.
2. Draw half of each object, then cut with the square folded. This gives you symmetrical objects (see photos).
3. If you’re making a card, the pot needs to have a fairly long, straight side for the fold.

C. To make the card, follow these steps:

1. Fold in half the colored cardstock you’ll use for the card.
2. Place your unfolded pattern up against the fold line of the colored cardstock and cut out the pot-shaped card, cutting through both layers of cardstock.
3. Now cut the pot pattern piece a little smaller all around and use this smaller pattern to cut out a front for the pot from the white construction paper.
4. Cut another piece of white construction paper for the inside message, in whatever shape you’d like

D. To make the green stems and leaves, follow these steps:

1. Cardstock is really best for this, and you may need to glue 2 stem pieces together to provide a stiff enough stem for the tulips.
2. Draw or make patterns or cut freehand several stems and leaves (see photos for shapes)

E. To make the Delft designs on the pot, follow these steps:

1. Use a pencil to lightly draw whatever designs you’d like on the white paper pot (repeat some of these on the inside paper, see photo)
2. If you remember from the previous post, Delft designs are blue on a white background.
3. Depending on the age of your children these designs can be simple or more detailed. I’ve included both and also the easy way to make some of the more intricate designs.(The red lines are what are added to complete the designs)
4. If using watercolor paints, go over the pencil lines with blue crayon so it’s easier to keep the paint inside the designs.
5. Use much less water when mixing paint for this small painting, and do not wet the paper.
6. Once the papers are dry add an Easter message to the inside paper.

F. To make the tulips and butterflies, follow these steps:

1. Use your patterns to cut tulips and butterflies from the water-colored paper or flat portion of the paper plates.
2. Cut double the number of tulips you want if you don’t want the stems to show.
3. Use crayon or marker to color the body of the butterflies.
4. I liked these watercolor butterflies, but found they didn’t contrast enough with the pot, so…
5. In the end I used orange cardstock and black marker to make some stylized monarch butterflies (see the photo).

G. To assemble the card follow these steps:

1. Have an adult use an x-acto knife to make a slit along the lip of the Delft “pot” paper (see photo).
2. Insert your stems and leaves through the slit and arrange these in the way you’d like.
3. Apply glue to each stem and leaf and stick to the back of the Delft “pot.”
4. Now apply glue to the back of the Delft “pot” and attach this to the front of the pot-shaped card (the stems and leaves will now look as if they are coming from inside the pot).
5. Glue the other white piece of paper on the inside of the card.
6. Glue each pair of tulips pieces together with the top of a stem in between (see photo).
7. Fold the butterflies so one wing can stick up.
8. Apply glue to the butterfly’s body and the back of one wing and place these where you’d like them (I put one inside and one on the front).
9. Let all the glue dry completely before closing the card.

Helpful Hints:

• You can also just cut away the top part of the Delft “pot’s” oval and then glue as explained above
• Score around the butterfly’s body to make the wings fold more easily
• When you close the card, make sure the inside butterfly’s unglued wing is folded up.

Clean up Hints:

Wax paper under objects as you apply glue protects surfaces and helps prevent things from sticking where they shouldn’t.

 Variations:

• Skip the painting, and use colored paper for the tulips or have children color these with crayon or maker.
• Use markers or crayons for the blue Delft designs also.
• Instead of a card, make the project and attach to a colored background for a poster to hang.

Now that you’ve created your masterpiece, Molly and I hope you’ll follow this link to my website, where you can sign up for my brand new newsletter and receive a free booklet to help you Make Museum Visits a Masterpiece for Your Family!    http://www.kathy-oneill.com/

 

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Fun and Easy Easter Art Project

You’ll have fun doing this easy Easter art project with your children this week, so let’s put the next drawing lesson on hold until next Monday. (although we were already starting Easter art projects before school closed, it’s sneaked up on me for projects on this blog!)

This painting project makes a cute picture of sheep in a pasture and perfectly illustrates Psalm 100: 3, “…we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.” and John 10:11 where Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” NIV

This project can be done in 2 short activity times. Do part A and go on to another activity while the paint dries; then come back to finish with part B same day if you like.

Supplies:

• Sturdy white paper such as construction paper
• Scrap paper, any color
• Cardboard such as cereal box cardboard, cut into 2 to 3 inch squares
• Yarn, any color
• Tape such as masking, packing, or duct tape
• Scissors
• Green paint, largish plastic cover, paintbrush or plastic knife or spoon
• Crayons or markers

Follow these simple steps:

Part A. 20 to 30 minutes

1. Draw and cut out several cloud shapes of different sizes from the scrap paper. Notice the cloud shapes are from the circular line and shape drawing lesson last week!!
2. Fold over pieces of masking tape to stick the “clouds” to your white construction paper (you will be removing these so don’t stick them heavily—one piece per cloud)
3. Arrange cloud shapes on your construction paper
4. To make your “stamp” make a “handle” out of tape for your piece of cardboard
5. Tape one end of a piece of yarn on this same side
6. Wrap the yarn around and around the cardboard, and tape the end on the back (wrap the strand fairly tightly, but not too close together)
7. put a small amount of green paint on the plastic lid and spread with a spoon or brush.
8. Rub your cardboard stamp around the thin layer of paint just to coat the yarn strands
9. Stamp all over your white paper and cloud shapes. The stamping should look like blades of grass. Pick up more paint as needed.( help children to stamp up and down without smearing)

Let dry

Part B  20 to 30 minutes

1. Part B  20 to 30 minutes
2. Remove cloud shapes
3. With pencil draw heads, ears, and legs (I use pencil first so I remember the eyes)
4. Color these in with black marker or crayon
5. Use other marker or crayon colors to make flowers. Notice the heads, ears, and flower petals are all in the circular group of lines and shapes from last week’s drawing lesson, and the legs are just straight lines. So you can use what you learned last week for this part of the project
6. If you wish, add the Bible reference/s in one corner.

Variation

 Use smaller paper and make just one or two sheep and turn it into an Easter card.

Molly hopes you enjoy making this Easter picture, and come back on Friday for another Easter art project!!

 

 

 

 

Good Friday and Easter Paintings of the Isenheim Altarpiece

Like Notre Dame the Isenheim Altarpiece has been through many dangerous times since its creation in the 1500s, but it has survived to remind us of Christ’s death and resurrection!

On Good Friday and Easter we remember and celebrate that, “ . . .the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28.

 

In Grunewald’s crucifixion panel, darkness is the backdrop for one of the most moving crucifixions in all of Western Art. “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’” John 19:30.  He then committed His spirit to His Father and died.

On the left Mary, who in the Christmas Picture,  looked with such love on her baby, now looks with anguish at her dead son. John and Mary Magdalen show the intense grief and shock that all the disciples must have felt. Is there any hope?

Yet, even in this darkest hour, Grunewald gives his viewers hope. On the right the artist has shown John the Baptist with a lamb at his feet and holding an open Bible as he points to Jesus.

Long before, when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, God had them choose a lamb to bring into their homes for 4 days.

Look at these parallels

• John heralded Jesus’ coming when he said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” John, John 1:29. Jesus then preached and ministered among the Israelites for 3 or 4 years.
• He entered Jerusalem on the day the Passover lambs were chosen, (Palm Sunday) and was crucified 4 days later.

On that original Passover the Israelites killed the lambs after the 4 days and put their blood on the doorposts and lintel of their homes so that when the angel of death passed through the land that night, he would Pass Over any home with the blood of a lamb over its doorway.

Each year Jewish people were to look back and reenact that event that freed them from earthly slavery, but God also meant for Passover to look ahead to Christ’s coming, when He, as the perfect Lamb of God, would give Himself for us, shedding His blood on the cross, so we can be freed from an even worse slavery–slavery to sin, and fear of death.

So John holds a Bible and points to Jesus to show that Jesus came to die according to God’s wise and loving plan. To further emphasize this truth, the lamb at his feet holds a cross.  Jesus gave Himself as the perfect and once and for all sacrifice for our sins, so we can be forgiven and reconciled to God.

“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”

1. O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
   Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
   O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
   Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.
2. What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
   Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
   Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
   Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.
3. What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
   For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
   O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
   Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee

lyrics in public domain

Next we look under the crucifixion to a small scene showing the disciples preparing Jesus’ body for burial in a white shroud. There is no life in Him, and at the end of the day on Friday, His disciples buried Him. Again there seems to be no hope.

Then comes Sunday, Easter, and

In Grunewald’s final panel, we see a most beautiful and amazing resurrection scene. Jesus has risen in power and glory from the grave; the guards have fallen in fear and awe. They and the stone could not hold Him, and neither could death. His body, once so pale and marred by death, is now alive with warmth though His wounds still show.

The cold, white shroud of death has turned to warm reds, oranges, and yellows as Jesus rises from the grave. He has defeated Satan and death so that we can be saved to live forever with God.

Put down your burdens of sins, of regrets, of striving to be good enough, and accept the free gift of forgiveness and salvation that God longs to give you when you humble yourself to accept Christ. Hallelujah, He is risen! 

 

 

The two photos of paintings from the Isenheim Altarpiece were taken by the author.

The next kathythepicturelady post will be devotional to go along with my series on Monet’s cathedrals and haystacks.