i had this lovely book from the library with pointillistic (is that a word?) illustrations, and thought i could gather some round objects from the junk drawer for the kids to make large dots (ok, so it's a very loose interpretation of pointillism. ;-) it was a good way to focus on reusing and recycling, though, and it all just seemed to fit.
this week, we were inspired by this book to create some unique faces of our own. it was fun to use a book of photographs, rather than an illustrated one, for a change. 
after we talked about how crazy and wonderful it is that each person is totally unique (the kids seemed quite perplexed, yet pleased about that),
we played a little pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey-ish kind of game. ours was pin-the-feature-on-the-face, and each artist got the chance to come on up and place a construction paper shape wherever they wanted. next time, i'll have to bring some picasso works in to share, as well. 
it was great fun to take a little break from paint and to go crazy with all kinds of scraps and shapes. very neat to watch all the faces take form with such variety and freedom. and i should also mention my art-group-leader-oops as a little reminder to us all... one little guy was working away on his face when i strolled over and noticed two small pieces sort of sticking out of the side with something else attached to those. in my hasty appraisal of the situation, i assumed something had accidentally gotten stuck to his face, and i "helped" him pull those pesky stragglers off. he patiently waited, and then politely informed me that was his face's body. OH MY HEC!!!! red alert! what was i thinking??!?!?!? fortunately, i almost always remember to keep my "helping" hands off other people's art...jeezaloo....
following this lovely lady's lead, i just had to try these. she's the queen of "stained glass" and has many great ideas for creating all kinds of cool, sun-catching art. this day, we just used some simple shapes cut from tissue paper. of course, the kiddos were excited to cut their own shapes, too. even our littlest artists got in on it, and sam seemed quite interested in the stickiness of the contact paper...forget about those silly little pieces of paper. we used colored masking tape to finish the edges, and presto! cool stained glass works of art.
this is a very cool book you can "read" from any direction & a really good one for learning to "see" art and appreciate various interpretations. depending on how you look at it, the appearance of each image changes. the kids loved piping in with their own creative ideas, and
one of our junior botanists in training recently decided he needed to draw his prized bouquet so it would "be like a picture and [he could] save it forever". i was busily going about my own work, so i wasn't paying much attention to his. when he finally shared, i was awestruck with his creation. moments like these make me 
while perusing this book from the library, leif and eric noticed that the illustrations looked like watercolor. a closer look (above) reminded me of crayon resist, and so we decided to give it a try at art group. as a side note, the title bothered me a bit, and i even considered pasting the word "different" over it before reading it to the kids. censorship didn't seem like a good answer, either, so instead, i opted to talk it over with the kids at group that morning. we talked about why the other dinosaurs might have called archie "ugly", how that might have made him feel, and some of the other ways they could have described their observations of their different little friend. it was a nice little chat, i think, and dovetailed right in with appreciating art, however "different" it may be. ;-)
the crayon doesn't show up too well in these photos. although white has the most dramatic effect (it's a "secret" that doesn't show up until you watercolor over it), the kids were definitely drawn more to the colored crayons. i even got to try this one but neglected to take any pictures... this is an oldie but goodie, and one we do a lot at home. a google search of "crayon resist" yields all kinds of cool projects to do with this technique...loads of fun things to try!
we used the book, "round trip" by ann jonas as our launch. the book is a beautiful, unusual one i remember from childhood, and i'm always excited to share its surprise with other kiddos.
on the way there and on the way back...
i encouraged the kids to turn their work different ways in order to view it from different perspectives, just as we did when we flip the book over at the end.
when leif asked why we didn't also have black glue, i was delighted to be able to "fix" that problem by running out to the van where i just happened to have a little black food coloring on hand (sometimes it pays to not clean out your car very regularly). once the black glue was in play, more inspiration struck, including writing with it.
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