Easy Birch Tree Painting Tutorial - Free Acrylic Painting Lesson

This is one of my most popular class projects so I thought I would share the how-to in a video.  It is perfect for kids or beginners.  Please subscribe and "like" if you enjoyed this video! Thanks for watching!

Supplies used:
10"x20" Canvas
Masking or Painters Tape (3/4", 1", 1.5", 2" widths)
Acrylic Paints (various colors, including metallic and black)
Sponge Brush
Plastic Gift Card
Circular objects in various sizes for stamping

Here is the link to the original post:  Kids Art Class Birch Trees

Mixed Media Portraits - Kids Art Class

This was one of those projects that took me longer to prepare than it took the kids to complete.  I took photos of my students and edited them using photoshop prior to class. I am still a novice with photoshop so it took longer than it probably should have!  I changed the photos to black and white, then went to greyscale, adjusted the contrast and highlights, then applied the halftone effect.  The edited photos were then printed onto transparency paper.

In class, I had my students cover their canvas panels with scrapbook paper using mod podge. Then they glued the transparency over the top of the papers. In my photos you can still see the wet mod podge through the transparency, but it will eventually dry clear.
I had originally planned on using a transfer technique with the transparencies, but when I tested it, the paper was tearing, so I improvised.  It probably saved a lot of headaches!

We had about a half hour left in class so I used our remaining time to teach them how to draw a simple face.

Here is a link to the original post where I got this idea from:  Christine Adolph Designs

Layered Vellum Leaf Rubbing - Kids Art Class

This was a super fun and easy project. The vellum layer gave it a beautiful, almost ethereal, look.

The bottom layer is plain drawing paper which was stamped with leaf-shaped stamps in dark ink colors.  The top layer is vellum which has real leaf rubbings using colored pencils.  Since they could see the leaves under the vellum they were able to carefully trace and fill in the leaves.  We also added extra leaf stamps in lighter ink colors onto the vellum.  To finish, we framed them to make the layers really show.

 

 

Cat Portrait Paintings - Kids Art Class

You don't have to be a cat person to admit that these cat portraits turned out pretty darn cute!  We did these adorable acrylic paintings this week in my kids art class. I started out by showing the students how to draw a simple cat face. Photos of various cat breeds were provided for them to use as a reference. The children (ages 7-13) learned to use stencils on the background (pouncing with very little paint) and also how to dry brush the cat fur. I gave them the option to do a cartoon style cat if they preferred and showed how to do different eyes.  It was a really fun project and they did a purrfectly great job (sorry couldn't resist). :)