Last week and this week we spent some time exploring art making with straws.
Our first project was bubble painting and our second was creating paintings by blowing paint across the page. I purchased The Artful Parent this month, a wonderful compilation of children's art projects by Jean Van't Hul, and these projects came from her wonderful book.
Here is a Link to the book through Roost Books: The Artful Parent
Before we began, I had the children play around with blowing air at each other through the straws.
In addition to this being just plain old fun for the kids, I was also nervous about them sucking up the bubble solution so I thought it was a good way to practice. Jean wrote to put a little hole near the top of the straw, this helps with them not being able to suck in the solution, but there is still the chance, so I thought a little playful practice would help.
Air Blown Painting
My older kid's had so much fun playing with the straws during Art Time, that I thought the younger ones would enjoy doing a project with them as well.
I set this group up with their trays, card stock, and straws. Again they played around with blowing air at each other. Then one color at a time, I poured a little on their trays and they began blowing the paint around, it looked like the paint was crawling across the paper.
For this project you need to water down the paint a little. I made a point to water down some colors more then others because I felt it would help the colors blend easier. I also recommend using white. Their is something about watered down white paint that lends itself beautifully to projects in which you are trying to get the colors to blend, but not become a muddied mix of color. I found it worked wonderfully for this project, but also marbling and spin art.
The end results were very beautiful and looked a lot like marbled paper.
After the children tired of blowing the paint, many took the straws and painted with them, which
of course I loved watching, for me this is the part I love the best, the surprises that emerge spontaneously when they are working with art materials.
Here is a Link to the book through Roost Books: The Artful Parent
Before we began, I had the children play around with blowing air at each other through the straws.
In addition to this being just plain old fun for the kids, I was also nervous about them sucking up the bubble solution so I thought it was a good way to practice. Jean wrote to put a little hole near the top of the straw, this helps with them not being able to suck in the solution, but there is still the chance, so I thought a little playful practice would help.
The invitation was set up when they came into "Art Time."
We have been continuing to work on our color mixing project, so this was an exciting
new way to mix colors and see those colors bubble over.
They each had a spoon and told me which colors they wanted to mix in, and then the fun began!
I love these magical plates of bubble. Our trays have a nice little lip, so I had the children prop their bubble plates up on them to help make a larger reservoir to blow their bubbles in.
How he managed to get just one large bubble amazed both of us!
They kept their papers near by to "catch" their bubbles. It was great fun and I like the results.
Air Blown Painting
My older kid's had so much fun playing with the straws during Art Time, that I thought the younger ones would enjoy doing a project with them as well.
I set this group up with their trays, card stock, and straws. Again they played around with blowing air at each other. Then one color at a time, I poured a little on their trays and they began blowing the paint around, it looked like the paint was crawling across the paper.
For this project you need to water down the paint a little. I made a point to water down some colors more then others because I felt it would help the colors blend easier. I also recommend using white. Their is something about watered down white paint that lends itself beautifully to projects in which you are trying to get the colors to blend, but not become a muddied mix of color. I found it worked wonderfully for this project, but also marbling and spin art.
The end results were very beautiful and looked a lot like marbled paper.
After the children tired of blowing the paint, many took the straws and painted with them, which
of course I loved watching, for me this is the part I love the best, the surprises that emerge spontaneously when they are working with art materials.
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