Art – Page 7 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Nature Photography Art

Today’s Theme: Science, Tech, Art, Math
(yup, 4 for the price of 1… and technically, you could say it’s Engineering too if you use your items collected to build something…!)

With my life as crazy busy as it has been lately, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you that we’ve been doing a lot of super free, unplanned play. Like watching a lot of Sesame Street. And Creative Galaxy. And Super Why. And building train sets. And marble runs. And working puzzles. And coloring in coloring books and on plain paper. Ya know, the ordinary, unexciting activities that make up MOST of our normal lives. Not a whole lot worth blogging about and saying “wow, isn’t this fantastic? Don’t you want to do this with YOUR kids?” HA! But, I know that one of the things my readers comment on the most is how they feel inspired by what I share. And honestly, that is humbling. And it helps hold me to a higher standard for my own kids. And I appreciate that. Maybe it’s something about turning 31 today (really? 31? I remember when 30 seemed ancient… and now 50 doesn’t sound that old…), or maybe it’s just because my life has been so crazy that I’ve had to think about hitting the “reset” button on our school time… but for whatever reason, I came up with a super fun, EASY activity to do with Becca this past week that she absolutely loved. And hopefully your kids will too! (And hopefully I can come up with some more fun ideas very soon! Might be time to pull out my Raising Creative Kids book again and snag some more ideas from Colleen!! Have you gotten her book yet? OMG. You need it. You really do. The link is on the right hand side of this page… or at the bottom if you’re on a mobile device. And yes, it’s an affiliate link, so I make some dough from your purchase – THANK YOU!)

Wow. That might well have been the longest run-on paragraph I’ve ever written here on my blog. Thank ya’ll for sticking with me through that! HA!

And now to the nitty gritty – Nature Photography Art!

Becca LOVES to get out in our yard and explore. We are so blessed to have some amazing land for her to roam around on, and even more blessed that we’re on the edge of Texas Hill Country, so our wildflowers each Spring are just simply incredible. With zero work on our part. God just paints our land every single year for us, and we are so blessed! Cody and I both love to take nature photos – it’s one of the things that we first found that we had in common when we met. So our kids see us take pictures of flowers and trees and butterflies and random rock formations ALL. THE. TIME. And Becca often asks me if she can take the picture. But I hesitate to let her hold my phone outside – especially on a day like the one when we did this activity – because the ground was moist and there are random rocks… ya know, my luck I’d hand her my iPhone 6 Plus and she’d drop it face down into a mud puddle with rocks at the bottom (I know Apple Care is great, but…)! So I came up with this idea to get her involved, let her take nature photos, and yet do it in a structured environment.

I took this photo in our front yard while we were working on collecting our flowers for this project. The butterflies were fluttering EVERYWHERE, and the Indian Blankets are just gorgeous!

Here’s what you’ll need to do this activity:
A bucket or basket of some sort
A source of wildflowers, leaves, grass, or rocks
A sheet of white butcher paper
A good lamp
A magnifying glass
A digital camera of some sort that you are willing to let your child use
Optional extension: A computer with internet for photo editing (I use PicMonkey.com)

So just take your bucket to your source of nature, and collect objects. It can be ANYTHING. Any small piece of nature can be a fabulous source for photography. Keep in mind that live objects such as caterpillars are harder to photograph – especially for kids – because they are a moving target. So encourage your child to select STILL LIFE objects. You can explain that still life is a type of art that depicts objects that are alive, but not moving. Flowers don’t get up and walk away. Nor do rocks or grass. So they work great for this project. Try to pull an entire wildflower plant up – root and all – to examine with your child. If that’s not possible, no worries, but it certainly extended our conversation GREATLY to have a couple full plants. We talked about the parts of the plant while out there in the yard, and also again once we got into the house – a fabulous science lesson. You can totally do this with rocks as well, and get into discussing and sorting the features of the rocks, and create a rock collection box.

Once your basket or bucket is full, head inside and lay out your white butcher paper. Set up your lamp and grab your magnifying glass and camera – the fun is about to begin! Start laying out your objects on the paper. You can talk about their shadows, their colors, examine them close up, and watch the paper closely with your magnifying glass as lots of teeny tiny little bugs will crawl off of the flowers and begin to explore your paper. This is a fabulous time to talk about the features of the camera with your child – especially how to make it focus. If your little one has shaky hands and you’re using a phone for your photos, work as a team – you hold the phone, let your little one select where on the screen to focus, and push the shutter button to snap the picture (that’s what we did).

Try laying your objects out in all different ways – you can get as creative as your child wants. You could spell nature words with your objects, you could spell your child’s name, you could build something with your rocks, or you could just do random grouping nature shots. Encourage your child to try holding the camera closer to an object and farther away to see the difference in the two shots. How does the shadow look on the screen? Can you move your camera to a different location to make the shadow longer or shorter? Etc. The possibilities with this activity are ENDLESS. And totally repeatable!! Just collect different objects each time, and you can do this activity over and over and over.

If you want to extend the activity further in the tech area and your child is really into it, you can easily upload your photos to your computer and check out www.picmonkey.com (totally not an affiliate link, I just love them so much and use their site for everything!). Try making a collage of your photos together, or even play around with their favorite photo to make a sign for their bedroom door, an inspirational saying for their bathroom mirror, or add text to several of the photos to create a book that you can print out and stick in a 3 ring binder for them. You could also do this activity throughout the seasons and use these photos instead of paintings for your 2016 calendar! You could also add some math to this activity by measuring each flower and sorting them by length! The possibilities of where you can go with this activity are truly limitless, and think of the OWNERSHIP your child will have in this project – and the fabulous opportunity to do something one on one with your child. (I know I’m frequently looking for something special I can do with JUST Becca so that she feels special and grown up. We did this while Grayson was napping. If your younger child doesn’t nap anymore, you can easily have them go on the hunt with you and collect their own items in a separate basket, then give them white paper as well and let them play with the objects. They could draw ovals around them with crayons, count their objects, and sort by color, just to give you a few ideas.)

Here are some of the beautiful pieces we came up with together:

I am truly so excited about this activity, and I can’t wait to do it with her again with other objects and different flowers!! I especially loved her root picture (she wasn’t that fond of it, but she loved examining the roots and playing with the shadows!)

I hope that you will try this activity with your kids, and that you’ll SHARE your results on my Facebook page!!! I would love to see what you are doing!!! Check back next week – I’m hoping to get more posts up before then for the start of our next new month!!

Kitchen Brush Flowers

We have the wonderful blessing of living on the edge of the Texas Hill Country. The wildflowers this time of year are just incredible! A while back, I got this cute little piggy kitchen brush at Dollar Tree for Becca, but I wasn’t sure just how I wanted her to use it. Then I got to thinking what awesome paintings it would make… and the Mountain Laurels also inspired me! So, I drew “bark” onto the paper, and then she had a blast dabbing green paint and then lavender paint, making her very own Mountain Laurel paintings! You could easily do this with green and then any color to mimic any flowering bushes that you might have in your own yard. I can also imagine it’d be great for fall colors as well – red and yellow would look incredible “stamped” this way to make fall trees! Or, just use the kitchen brush to dab colors around on the paper and make a lovely collage just perfect for the background of one of your 2016 calendar pages! So many fun options when you paint with a kitchen brush!!

Mini Engineering Challenges

Here we are, once again, on the 2nd Thursday of the month! I’m not quite sure where March went, to be perfectly honest with you! But, we did some awesomely fun mini engineering challenges in March… so here are some new ideas for you to try with your little engineers!

We love our Bristle Blocks! If you don’t have a set of these, you can definitely purchase them on Amazon here (Battat Bristle Blocks Basic 112 Piece Set Building Kit – affiliate link, thank you!). Bristle blocks are fabulous for so many reasons, but Becca really enjoys the way they feel – as a sensory seeker, she will sit and rub these blocks while she’s thinking about where to put them. They just feel really neat in her hands. Many times, I just let her build whatever, but sometimes I’ll say “see if you can build a ______” and give her an idea. It is fabulous to let your little engineer free play with blocks and building materials, but it’s also a wonderful idea to give her a specific task to focus on – it puts her brain into the mode of needing to solve a problem, and figure out how to best complete the task at hand. So next time you get out the bristle blocks, try some of these fun things as building challenges:

boat
car
house
rocket
dinosaur
school

Becca loves to build cities. Who knows, maybe someday she’ll be a civil engineer and work for some large city, or be an architect who designs skyscrapers. I love that the sky is the limit for her. And all of the activities we do encourage her to grow and play in new and different ways. She loves the wooden blocks that my dad made for me when I was a kid, and she plays with them frequently. (If you see the apples on some of them and wonder about that, check out this post from last fall about our Ten Apples Up on Top activity – she still enjoys doing that, and anytime I mention taking the apples off, she gets very defensive of the apples! HA!) But anyway, if your kids don’t have a wonderful set of wooden blocks, there are some fabulous ones available on Amazon – try this set: Melissa & Doug 60-Piece Standard Unit Blocks. (aff link, thank you!)

So when your kiddos are building with their wooden blocks, free, imaginative play is awesome, but you can also take it to a different level by creating a challenge for them – see if they can create a variety of structures. Becca loves to build towers with her blocks, so I asked her one day, “well, how about if you build a city this time?” (She typically builds cities only with her Duplos.) She had so much fun creating roads and buildings and even decided where each person in our family would live and work, where the park and school and church were located… she really got detailed with it! I would definitely encourage you to play blocks with your kids and challenge them to build a city! See what fabulous ideas they come up with!

Becca loves straws. She’s fascinated with them – not only in their function, but also in the various ways she can play with them. The other day, she decided on her own that we could “probly” make a rainbow with them, but informed me “I’m gonna need some major help.” So I obliged, gladly! She knew the rainbow started with red on top, so we found all the red straws and laid them out, then we talked about each color and figured out how to place them inside of each other. When she was done, she declared “George is the treasure under the rainbow!” and proudly placed him underneath. That made me smile so big. This girl has a heart of gold. And she really does cherish her little friend.

Encourage your little engineer to play with straws. Remember that building doesn’t always involve making a 3d structure – but also can be a fabulous 2d construction as well. We’ve made several other straw pictures since then – we’ve built a house, a pirate ship, a dinosaur, some clouds, and an airplane. I love how so many of the STEAM subject matters overlap each other! This project is clearly engineering AND art… as is our next idea!

I’ve mentioned previously how much Becca LOVES the Amazon show, Creative Galaxy. She watches it on her Kindle regularly. She has seen each of the 9 episodes at least 9 times, if not 20. In one of the shows between the shows (where real kids make art), they use recycled materials to build items. One of the ideas they mention but don’t build is a fire truck. So, Becca got it in her head that she wanted to build a fire truck! She told me the materials she wanted to use to make it, and I obliged. I held the hot glue gun, but she placed each item where she wanted it, and did the art work to draw the windows and headlights. She even determined she wanted the ladder to stick up like it was going up to a house to help someone. So, we figured out how to do the glue so that it would dry sticking up into the air.

I loved so much that she came up with this project on her own, and that I took the time to make it possible for her. So many times it’s easy for us to hear an idea that our kids have and say there isn’t time, or we don’t have the supplies. But this was a project that really benefited us both – I was amazed to see what she is capable of and how her brain works, and she was given a confidence boost because Mommy believed in her idea and helped her make it a reality!

What we used: an old puffs container, fruit pouch lids, straws, hot glue, Sharpee marker, scissors (she cut the straws into pieces – fabulous fine motor practice!)

I’d love to see your kids make items from recycled materials! Please share your finished engineering feats on my Facebook page anytime and label them #engineeringrocks!

Looking for more engineering ideas for your kids? Each month on the 2nd Thursday I post Mini Engineering Challenges! Check out my Engineering page for links to my previous months, and visit next month for more new ideas including a Lego game your family is gonna love!

Getting Started with Art

I recently was asked by a friend who follows my blog how to get started doing art with her twins – who just turned two. I gave her a few ideas, but I feel like because I was distracted, my brain didn’t fully process the question until I got home (from her twins birthday party – wonder why I was distracted? ;)… So I thought I would take the time to create a post that answers her question – and maybe some of yours, too!

So how do you get started?

Well, if you’re timid like I was, a fabulous way to start with a child of ANY age is to start in the bathtub. Because its easy to clean out, and then you just have to take off and throw away a diaper – instead of worry about what gets on their clothes. Start with finger paints, or even finger paint soap:(ALEX Toys Rub a Dub Paint in the Tub Finger Painting Kit aff link – thank you!) A few things to remember – your child will paint himself. Entirely. Head to toe. Whether the first paint you use is fingerprint soap in the tub or not… OR you’ll encounter the other extreme – some kids dip their fingers into finger paints, and they don’t like it AT ALL. It’s a texture that just feels super weird and they don’t like it. They don’t want to be messy. So be prepared for one of these two drastic responses… and if you’re prepared for the extremes, maybe your child will fall right in the middle and only paint with their fingers on the appropriate surface. 🙂 Every child is different! But, I always recommend starting in the tub to see how your child will respond. (Especially if you have two children – one may love it, and the other might not. Try introducing it to them separately if you can so that the response of their sibling doesn’t influence their own initial feelings about it.)

Another great tub activity that never gets old is playing with shaving creme in the tub. You can squeeze it into a pile, like a pile of paint, or spray it all over the tub and your child – but if you’ve never done it before, go with a pile til you know if they are going to agree with the texture or not. If you have a child who enjoys different smells, try dumping a pouch of Kool-aid around on top of the shaving creme to make good smelling, colored shaving creme! 🙂

If you’re starting art with a child who doesn’t like finger paints or getting their hands dirty, another great option is Crayola’s Color Wonder markers and paper: (Get started with Crayola Color Wonder 10 Mini Markers and Crayola Color Wonder Drawing Paper-30 Sheets – aff links, thank you) They also have a wide variety of coloring sheets with your child’s favorite movie and tv characters. These are also a fabulous way to introduce markers before allowing any child to use regular markers – because they TRULY only write on the special paper.

Or, if you’re already ready to dive in to start painting at the table, here are a few supplies I recommend having on hand:
-A large plastic tablecloth that can get lots of paint on it. We have one that is for picnicking – has the fabric backing to it – so it’ll last through all of our projects, and we can just let it dry, fold it up, and put it away for the next time we need it. Check out any of my posts, and you’ll see it – the unsung hero of art in our house. HA! (But seriously ya’ll… get a table cloth!)
-Dixie cups / cheap paper plates for putting paint in/on.
-A really good variety of textured card stock paper – I prefer textured because it grabs the paint and holds on, and is thicker than regular card stock. I recommend watching Michael’s and Hobby Lobby for sales or purchasing a paper pack with a coupon.
-A set of paint brushes in a variety of sizes and textures (again, Hobby Lobby or Michael’s is your best bet).
-A large smock or paint coat. Becca uses my old chef’s coat from when I sold Pampered Chef. It’s huge, which is perfect because it covers all of her, and it also doubles as a science lab coat. With a child that I know will end up painting her hands, and possibly getting it elsewhere head to toe, I want to make sure she is covered so that I can just relax and have fun with her!
-Paint. I recommend having a couple of different kinds. Crayola makes some fabulous finger paint, but we really prefer to use acrylic paints. They wash off of skin easily, and they are great to manipulate with cars, brushes, corks, foam, bubble wrap, etc. They also dry really well and make fabulous art prints. I am still in search of good liquid watercolors that we like that don’t cost a fortune. But remember – you can do some fabulous process art without very many supplies – grab a couple bottles of paint to start, and you’re good to go. Expand as you go.
-Also begin saving things – wine bottle corks, empty used Ziploc bags (not used for food), aluminum foil that can be reused for art, egg cartons, toilet paper and paper towel rollers, old partially used sand paper, food pouch lids, coffee or formula cans, etc. Make a storage space in your home for these supplies because you never know when you’ll see an art project or craft activity here that uses those supplies! 🙂

*-*Keep in mind for your Baby Bees (who put things in their mouths) – another fabulous way to introduce basic process art is to use “paint” that you already have in your pantry/fridge – ketchup, mustard, and mayo are great edible options that won’t hurt baby when he puts them in his mouth. HOWEVER, you may want to think twice before giving them condiments as a first paint – do you want them to view food as art materials, or just as food? Keep in mind that this is a highly debated topic in the world of preschool and baby art – I’m just throwing it out there as an option. We personally have not chosen to allow our kids to use edible art supplies, though I do make my own play dough, so it technically could be eaten without causing harm – though it tastes super salty. To me, food is food and art supplies are art supplies, and I don’t want to teach my kids that they can eat art supplies – because many of them are NOT safe. However, we do use lots of edible manipulatives for other non-art STEAM activities, and simply discuss the fact that this is not for eating in this activity, or set a limit to how many can be eaten (esp marshmallows… we do a lot with marshmallows). Totally up to you and your personal preferences if you want to do this or not. I would have been remiss if I hadn’t mentioned it as an option for your Baby Bees as a way to get them starting art earlier. Keep in mind also that you can do Ziploc bag painting with them if you prefer to keep the paint mess out of their mouths at their current age/stage.*-*

The important thing to remember when starting to do art with your child is this: a CRAFT worries about the end result. ART is all about the process it takes to get to whatever conclusion that is found. You do NOT have to be “crafty” to do art! ANYONE can create art. And all you need to do is check my Art Page to find a ton of fabulous ideas of simple activities to do. Keep in mind that with process art it’s not important for the child to see an end product as an example. Don’t feel like you need to make up a sample beforehand. In fact, DON’T show them an end product. Let them create and enjoy – and what they come up with will be their own unique artwork – not a copy of someone else’s design. I love to participate in the process and create my own artwork, or work together with Becca on a sheet. Most of our painting projects use up 4-5 sheets of card stock because we each do two sheets, and do one together.

Once your child gets older and are very used to free art work, give her a few step by step crafts to start honing those skills as well, but be sure she knows how to enjoy process art before trying to force a craft on her. (Note: this is a fairly new theory that I’m seeing become a trend in preschools across the US – and it is a FABULOUS one! I don’t know why I didn’t see this in the past! Crafts are important – because it’s important that children learn how to follow directions to create an end product, but ART is something entirely different that is also VERY important!!)

Two art blogs that I follow that I highly recommend to you are The Artful Parent and Red Ted Art. Both have fabulous ideas for process art, and also for lots of crafts. So beyond just checking out what we do here on Fridays (and occasionally other times as well), definitely do check out these blogs as well, because they have been doing this a lot longer than I have, and are often the inspiration for my projects! They also both have Facebook pages that you can follow if you are interested. Jean especially is good about sharing photos from throughout their projects on her Facebook page for The Artful Parent. And I love the videos that Red Ted Art shares of crafts on their Facebook page. (I’m not affiliated with these folks in any way – I just genuinely enjoy their posts.)

I hope that you’ve found this post helpful, and that you’ll follow my Friday “Fun with Art” series to get more ideas of activities you can do to bring art to life in your home with your kids – no matter their age! Also be sure to follow my Facebook page to get more ideas that I share from other bloggers. 🙂

Wildflower Window Decorations

I really enjoy following Jean Van’t Hul over at The Artful Parent. She has some fabulous ideas, and I have really become much more of an artful parent since following her blog. She had a fun idea about making some Easter egg window decorations, and I took that idea and turned it into a flower window decoration instead.

Becca really enjoyed going out to collect random flowers in a little baggy, and then we carefully deconstructed them for use in our art. She held the marker and guided the drawing as I assisted in making a flower design on our contact paper. She then helped put the wildflowers around randomly, and I covered them and cut them out, and then hung on our deck patio door. They are so pretty, and I really enjoy looking at them as I go by. They remind me that spring is here! I used Washi tape to make the stems and leaves, and I did Washi around one flower as Jean suggests in her blog, but then just left the other one b/c it was really hard to make it look the way I wanted in the design we chose to do.

This is a super fun and easy way to make a connection between the outdoors and an indoor art project. For us, I knew it was going to rain, so one afternoon we did the collecting, and the next afternoon while we watched the rain, we made the flowers and thought about spring! It was fun to watch the wheels turning in her mind as she talked about how the rain coming down was going to help the flowers grow more and more. She got so excited. And she was super excited to show our flowers to Daddy when he got home from work! 🙂

Please note – I typically do art projects where the end result is open-ended, and give Becca very little instruction. For this project, I showed her the blog post and Jean’s pictures before we ever started so that she’d have an idea of what we were going for in the finished product. She seemed to really appreciate having some direction, but also totally did her own thing, which was good. So it was sort of product AND process art since we had an end goal in mind and both knew what we were going for (and had to follow specific directions and steps to get to that goal), but it was also process art because it was more about the journey than what it actually turned up looking like in the end. 🙂